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The Perfect Pizza Book
The Perfect Pizza Book

The Perfect Pizza Book

Learn to make exceptional sourdough pizza at home with this groundbreaking, comprehensive guide from the New York Times bestselling and James Beard Award–winning author of The Perfect Loaf. 

Long before he founded the website The Perfect Loaf and became one of the go-to experts on sourdough baking, Maurizio Leo grew up in his family’s pizzeria, watching his dad cook countless pies. In The Perfect Pizza, he returns to his roots, tackling pizza with his signature in-depth, technique-driven approach. You can make unbelievably good homemade pizza using your sourdough starter, in any style of oven, and Maurizio is here to show you how. 

The key to making incredible pizza at home lies in making a great dough. Rather than relying on a few master dough recipes like most pizza books, The Perfect Pizza provides unique recipes for more than forty specialty pizza styles, meticulously tested to achieve the best flavor and texture. With helpful QR codes and step-by-step photographs, Maurizio dives into the technique behind creating and maintaining a sourdough starter, mixing dough, managing dough fermentation, and the handling skills needed for balling, stretching, and finally launching the pizza into the oven. 

Once you get the hang of the process, you can try out a wide range of pizza styles, starting with familiar classics before exploring doughs that incorporate whole grains and freshly-milled flour, focaccias, and little-known authentic, regional Italian specialties. The expertly tested recipes include: 

Essentials: My Go-To Pizza Dough; Same-Day Pizza Dough; A Pizza and a Loaf 

American and Italian Styles: New York Style; Tavern Style; Sicilian Style; Pizza al Taglio; Pizza Bianca; Pizza Tonda Romana 

Exploring Flours and Grains: Sixty-Forty Whole Grain Pizza Dough; Toasted Flour Pizza Dough; A Touch of Rye Pizza Dough 

Focaccia: A Simple Focaccia; Crispy High-Hydration Focaccia; 100% Whole Grain Focaccia; Focaccia with Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread 

With the delectable recipes and comprehensive techniques in The Perfect Pizza, you’re on your way to crafting a homemade pizza that perfectly suits your taste.

About the Author

Maurizio Leo is the creator of the sourdough baking website The Perfect Loaf and a New York Times Cooking contributor. His cookbook, The Perfect Loaf — The Craft and Science of Sourdough Breads, Sweets, and More, is a James Beard Award-winner and a New York Times bestseller. He lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife and two sons, where he has been baking sourdough for over a decade.

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Specs

UPC/EAN Number
9780593800768
Brand
Random House
Width
9.39"
Height
10.52"
Thickness
1.35"
Weight (lbs.)
4.39
Cover
Hardcover
Author
Maurizio Leo
Book Title
The Perfect Loaf: The Craft and Science of Sourdough Breads, Sweets, and More
ISBN
9780593800768
Page Count
432

Shipping

We stock this product in our Nebraska warehouse. Most of our shipments are by FedEx Ground or Home Delivery and you should receive your order in five business days or less from ship-out. Click here for more information about shipping.

Accessories for this product:

Brod & Taylor's Sourdough Home Plus

Great bread begins with a great starter and when it comes to sourdough starter, temperature is everything! The complex mix of microbes that cause bread to rise (and give your bread a distinctive flavor and aroma) are extremely sensitive to their environment. The Sourdough Home provides an easy way to precisely control the behavior of your starter. With degree-by-degree control from 41-122°F (5-50°C) you can maintain a consistent temperature or vary it to control the growth rate, aroma, and flavor of your bread. You can switch the temperature display from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

The inside of the proofer measures 5-1/8" x 5.5" x 7.5" which allows a 1 quart jar or two smaller jars to fit inside. Two shelves are included for flexible storage of small items.

As acclaimed sourdough baker Maurizio Leo from the Perfect Loaf blog explains in the video above "It's important that a sourdough starter is maintained in a consistent way, but the challenge there is that the temperature in your kitchen, even from one side of the kitchen to the other, can vary quite drastically... one of the great things about the Sourdough Home is that it allows you to effortlessly dial in the temperature that you want to keep your sourdough starter at."

The Sourdough Home by Brod & Taylor offers a convenient, quiet, and compact way to maintain the temperature of your sourdough starter at the exact temperature you want to keep it at, whether that's a warm environment as you're preparing to bake with it, or a cool environment if you want to store it between bakes. The Sourdough Home both cools and heats, so you have total flexibility with how often you want to feed your starter, whether that's twice a day or once a week, or anywhere in between.

Sourdough starter is a living colony of yeast and good bacteria. Like any living thing it needs to eat—just flour and water. Feeding your starter the proper ingredients at the right time is the first step in creating great sourdough bread. Using the precise temperature control of the Sourdough Home, you can adjust starter feeding times to meet your schedule.

As starter ferments and grows, it creates CO2 bubbles that cause the mixture to rise in its container. The ideal time to feed starter is when the rise has peaked—all of its food has been consumed—and before it begins to fall again. By using a constant seed ratio (quantity of flour and water) and controlling the temperature, you can control the feeding schedule to hours, days or even a week. Use the guidelines below to get started.

In a small town in Western Massachusetts, Brod & Taylor was founded on a passion for making wholesome food from scratch. Their products transform this often challenging process into a simple pleasure by blending innovative design with simplicity, affordability, and outstanding customer support.

(More info) See product

$179.00

In stock Usually ships in 3-5 business days.

Sourdough Home: A Starter Proofer & Cooler

Great bread begins with a great starter and when it comes to sourdough starter, temperature is everything! The complex mix of microbes that cause bread to rise (and give your bread a distinctive flavor and aroma) are extremely sensitive to their environment. The Sourdough Home provides an easy way to precisely control the behavior of your starter. With degree-by-degree control from 41-122°F (5-50°C) you can maintain a consistent temperature or vary it to control the growth rate, aroma, and flavor of your bread. You can switch the temperature display from Fahrenheit to Celsius.

The inside of the proofer measures 5-1/8" x 5.5" x 7.5" which allows a 1 quart jar or two smaller jars to fit inside. Two shelves are included for flexible storage of small items.

As acclaimed sourdough baker Maurizio Leo from the Perfect Loaf blog explains in the video above "It's important that a sourdough starter is maintained in a consistent way, but the challenge there is that the temperature in your kitchen, even from one side of the kitchen to the other, can vary quite drastically... one of the great things about the Sourdough Home is that it allows you to effortlessly dial in the temperature that you want to keep your sourdough starter at."

The Sourdough Home by Brod & Taylor offers a convenient, quiet, and compact way to maintain the temperature of your sourdough starter at the exact temperature you want to keep it at, whether that's a warm environment as you're preparing to bake with it, or a cool environment if you want to store it between bakes. The Sourdough Home both cools and heats, so you have total flexibility with how often you want to feed your starter, whether that's twice a day or once a week, or anywhere in between.

Sourdough starter is a living colony of yeast and good bacteria. Like any living thing it needs to eat—just flour and water. Feeding your starter the proper ingredients at the right time is the first step in creating great sourdough bread. Using the precise temperature control of the Sourdough Home, you can adjust starter feeding times to meet your schedule.

As starter ferments and grows, it creates CO2 bubbles that cause the mixture to rise in its container. The ideal time to feed starter is when the rise has peaked—all of its food has been consumed—and before it begins to fall again. By using a constant seed ratio (quantity of flour and water) and controlling the temperature, you can control the feeding schedule to hours, days or even a week. Use the guidelines below to get started.

In a small town in Western Massachusetts, Brod & Taylor was founded on a passion for making wholesome food from scratch. Their products transform this often challenging process into a simple pleasure by blending innovative design with simplicity, affordability, and outstanding customer support.

(More info) See product

$149.00

In stock Usually ships in 3-5 business days.

Brod & Taylor Proofer Pro

The Proofer Pro from Brod & Taylor sets a high standard for dough preparation with its combined warming and cooling capabilities. It is designed to meet the needs of both home bakers and small commercial kitchens. 

Consistent, Professional Results

Bring professional level dough fermentation into your kitchen with the first all-in-one dough environment designed for serious home bakers. The Proofer Pro combines warm proofing up to 122 °F, cold retarding down to 41 °F, and precise humidity control in a single unit, giving you complete control over every stage of the fermentation process. 

This innovative appliance both warms and cools, making it the only home dough environment that supports the full spectrum of professional fermentation techniques. Whether you’re proofing enriched doughs or slowing fermentation for deeper flavor development, this proofer delivers consistent, reliable results. 

(More info) See product

$999.00

In stock Usually ships in 3-5 business days.

Brod & Taylor Folding Bread Proofer

The Brod and Taylor Bread Proofer does more than just proof bread dough. Use it to make homemade yogurt or set it to a low temperature for pizza dough. You can also melt chocolate and butter without any fear of burning these delicate ingredients.

(More info) See product

$249.00

In stock Usually ships in 3-5 business days.

American Metalcraft Pizza Peel, 16 x 18 inch

This is the best peel we offer for use with the Rofco B40 oven. The blade length on this aluminum, American-made peel is 18" and the blade width is 16". The wood handle is 12" long. Overall length with the handle is 30". 

(More info) See product

$50.00

In stock Usually ships in 3-5 business days.

Epicurean Pizza Peel

The Epicurean Pizza Peels are great for making personal and family pizzas. Easily assemble and slide the pizza in and out of the oven. Once baked to perfection, just slice and serve! Choose a size and color option from the drop down selector above.

Sizes available are 17.5 x 10 inches, or 21.6 x 14 inches.

(More info) See product

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