Making homemade pizza for a crowd?

[GayeC]

I make homemade pizza for my family of 4 all the time, but tomorrow night I want to make it when friends come for dinner (for 5 adults and 4 children). What is the best way to do the crusts? It seems like the whole process will take too long if I roll out each crust as we are ready to use it. But when I prebake crusts they tend to get very "puffy," which makes it hard to put toppings on later. How do you do homemade pizza for a large group? Any advice will be appreciated.

TIA. Gaye

[emily]

The last time I made pizza for a crowd - 16 adults - I had all of the dough pre-made and rolled it all individually as we were ready to use it. I made 8 small pizzas and let pairs decide what they wanted their toppings to be. Not the most time efficient of methods, but everyone was pleased with the results :D

em

[dcornelius]

I can't be of any help to you on your question because I have only tried homemade pizza once but I thought I would share the experience cause it was so funny. I got a recipie for the crust and for the sauce and all recipies tasted great but when I made the crust I used one batch for each crust(I made three pizzas) and each pizza ended up with at least two solid inches of crust! The pizzas woould have been great if it weren't for those extra thick crusts. Any way my DD had friends over that night and they were so sweet they continued to eat those pizzas despite the two inch crusts. I looked at her friend Matt and told him he didn't have to eat it and that it wouldn't hurt my feelings if he didn't, he simply said no way its good! Poor boy...There are still polite kids out there;) I found, however, that while the first pizza baked I had time to prepare the second and the timeing of the whole deal worked out real well. I have only one pizza stone though so I couldn't have speeded the process up if I had wanted to.

[vbak]

I found that you need to stagger the baking time. When I put 2 pizzas in at once the one on top did not bake completely maybe becausse of interrupted hot air circulation. Now I start one for about 10 minutes, move it down to a lower rack and put the next one in on the top rack. You might have to bake one or two a little early and then shove them back into the oven to warm. Remember you don't normally run a pizzeria from your home. Everyone will be happy with what you serve. Let us know what toppings you used and how it turned out. Vicky

[GayeC]

That is so funny! I can picture those 2-inch crusts! I'll try to avoid error with mine.

Gaye

[Safari Girl]

I have to admit when it comes to making pizzas for a crowd I take the lazy way out and buy ready made flatbreads at the supermarket - our market has two kinds, regular and cheese and they bake up wonderfully. Then all I do is put them on pizza pans, load them with toppings depending on who wants what, then toss them (usually 2 at a time) into my convection oven and they bake perfectly in 14 minutes.

[Alky]

Here's my experience. I make homemade pizza every Friday night for my family. I use the baking stone in the oven on the bottom shelf at 500. Everything works out great. We make 2-2lb batches of dough and make 4-12 inch pizzas. Baking each one for around 10 minutes on the stone then putting the next in. I tried to use two stones a couple times and it did seem to interupt the air circulation in the oven and seemed to take way to long to cook. I might try one more time and try to move the bottom stone up a notch and see if that helps them cook faster. But my gut feeling is that home ovens just don't have enough room for two stones. I have also made 8 6-8 inch pizzas and had everyone put their own toppings on and bakes two at a time diagonally. It seems that with only one stone and only a 10 minute cycle that the first ones are done by the time the next ones are ready to come out. Not perfect but I have never had anyone not want to go home and try it themselves. Good luck!

[Kjente2]

I was just reading about this on the fine cooking site..here is the link to a video that may be helpful http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/cvt033.asp

[Gail]

My last response seems to have vanished into thin air, so we'll try this again.

Personally, I prefer the idea of doing an assortment of mini pizzas. You can vary toppings a great deal, and I think they're easier to move around. I don't roll out dough though, merely hand-stretch it --which is doubly easy with mini pizzas and only takes a moment-- that way I can constantly keep things moving.

Another thought might be to build two pizzas at the same time, either on two peels or one on parchment, and keep the second one ready to put in as the first one comes out.

Or, if you're a thick crust devotee, throw in one or more of those for a bit of variation, since they sit nicely in their pans (actually the crust benefits from resting before baking anyway) and you can toss one of those in while you build your next thin crust.