Planning A Pizza Party

[bzxhms]

Hello to all, I'm planning on having a few people over to show off my pizza oven. I'm just not too sure on how to store the pizza dough. Will it be OK to have the pizza balls pre made? What will be the best way to store the balls so I can have them on hand should anyone get hungry later.

Thanks for your help.

[brickie in oz]

Ive had a few parties and the dough is stored as a whole or blob, guests cut off as much or as little as they need..
Its such great fun to watch them all.......

[roobqn]

I like Brickie's idea, and agree guests have a lot of fun making their own pizza, not cooking it, but getting it to the peel and letting you do the cooking.

Another way is to pre make your dough balls and either place them in tupperware type containers or plastic baggie type bags. Oil either one of them and watch out for degassing. In this manner, you can remove as many balls from the fridge as you would need at the moment. I would let them sit out for a bit to knock off the chill though.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[splatgirl]

I think it is MUCH easier and tidier and you get a much nicer product if you ball the dough into individual portions separately beforehand. Mine go into round plastic containers with lids and get stashed in the fridge to pull out a few at a time. Depending on your dough recipe, tolerance for being/needing to be warm before stretching will vary. I use a very high hydration (~77%) dough and find that it's easier to work with cold.

If you are going to have guests make their own pies, I've found that a drier dough is easier for newbies to work with and is more tolerant of sitting around on the peel for a while before it hits the oven. The trade off is quality and ease of shaping. The drier the dough, the more it resists stretching. And very wet dough produces a superior result, IMO, but is not very forgiving of inexperience or dilly-dallying.