Ideas For Take-And-Bake – PMQ Pizza Journal

By Leo Spizzirri and Tracy Morin

Leo Spizzirri, maestro pizzaiolo, marketing consultant and founding father of Spizzirri Media in Chicago, has famous a rise within the pattern of take-and-bake within the pandemic years. “We positively noticed an uptick, alongside issues like household meals, curbside takeout, and different value-added companies to our clients who usually would have been consuming in our eating rooms,” Spizzirri says. “A variety of operators began to inquire: How do I make my pizza in order that it may be baked at anyone’s home and loved the identical manner that it was in my restaurant?”

Enter the comfort of take-and-bake—a good way to entice your clients to decide on your pizzeria over one other takeout or supply operation (or over the grocery retailer’s frozen pizza aisle). It’s additionally a good way for pies to hit the desk scorching and recent, serving a household for an inexpensive value with zero fuss. However, for those who’re pondering of including this service, Spizzirri particulars a number of factors to remember:

1) Formulation issues.

There are two most important strategies operators use for take-and-bake pizzas. First, you’ll be able to select topping a par-baked crust. Typically, our present formulations can be utilized to make a par-baked pizza, however there are intricacies in how lengthy that crust must be par-baked for. You want the construction to be baked by means of sufficient in order that, by the point the buyer will get the pizza again residence and sticks it within the oven, it’s not collapsing on itself or trying gummy or rubbery within the center.

Alternatively, you don’t need to cook dinner the pizza base an excessive amount of, as a result of then, by the point the buyer bakes it till the cheese and toppings are performed, the bottom is just too darkish. So we should discover the right time and temperature wanted to create the par-bake. That manner, once we write the ultimate baking directions for the buyer—who’s going to take this pizza residence and end it of their oven—these bake occasions are good: The pizza will get good and crispy on the underside, with the toppings and the crust baked appropriately.

Then there’s the opposite methodology: Put a disc of uncooked dough in a pan, high it with sauce, cheese and toppings, wrap it, then freeze it. When the buyer will get residence, now it’s like they’re baking a pizza from scratch. However anytime we freeze pizza dough, we all the time need to use recent yeast and never dry yeast. Since recent yeast is fabricated from about 80% water, it’s sort of insulating and defending the yeast cells in the course of the freezing course of. There are totally different conversion strategies for switching to recent yeast, relying on the type of pizza you make, however on the whole, for those who’re going to make any sort of frozen dough, the choice is to make use of recent yeast.

We should discover the right time and temperature wanted to create the par-bake. That manner, once we write the ultimate baking directions for the buyer…these bake occasions are good.

2) Buyer directions.

While you make the dedication to begin doing take-and-bake pizza, it’ll be a model of the pizza that you simply promote in your restaurant, but it surely’s now going to be left to the buyer to complete. The beauty of doing a par-baked crust is that it’s virtually an insurance coverage coverage that the pizza goes to end up properly—you’ve performed a lot of the heavy lifting.

Additionally, for the reason that crust on a par-bake is already set, the buyer doesn’t want an oven that goes as much as 550°, 600° or hotter. Most residence ovens go to about 500°, relying on the model. So if they need a crispier crust, they will place the pizza straight on the rack of the oven, for the reason that par-baked crust holds the toppings. In any other case, the directions could also be: Place the pizza on a sheet pan or a cookie sheet and cook dinner at 500°.

Experiment at your individual home, in your individual residence oven. How lengthy did it take, at 500°, to complete this pizza correctly? More often than not, if it’s a single-topping pizza, like cheese or pepperoni, you’re sticking that par-baked pizza into the oven for one more eight to 10 minutes. Keep in mind that everyone’s oven isn’t 500°, so we all the time need to give a spread of time: eight to 10 minutes, 10 to 12 minutes, and so forth.

3) Type factors.

Some types work particularly properly for take-and-bake: Chicago thin-crust, tavern-style, deep-dish or stuffed pizzas, even a Detroit-style or pan pizza. (You’ll be able to even get disposable pans so the buyer is baking in the identical pan they obtained it in.) Our New York-style spherical pie works very well, as a result of it cooks in that home-oven vary of 500°.

While you speak about wood-fired or Neapolitan-style pizza, usually the pizzeria is making, say, a Margherita pizza from scratch, sticking it into the oven, and beginning to bake. The Margherita is sort of all the best way performed, and the buyer simply finishes it within the oven, simply to crisp it up and remelt the cheese. In the event you aren’t doing a par-baked crust with uncooked sauce and uncooked cheese, the Neapolitan pizza could be performed.

However, usually, we’re not going to be topping with sauce proper on high of the pizza. As a substitute, we’d create a disc of dough and do some sort of docking within the middle so the crust doesn’t puff up like a pita. As soon as that base comes out of the oven, we enable it to chill totally earlier than we do anything to it. Then it may be topped with sauce, mozzarella and all the things else.

At that time, these pizzas, it doesn’t matter what type, as soon as they’re topped, will often return into the freezer in a single layer in order that they’re frozen strong. Then they’re wrapped or put into the ultimate container for the shopper to take residence.

Anytime we freeze pizza dough, we all the time need to use recent yeast and never dry yeast. Since recent yeast is fabricated from about 80% water, it’s insulating and defending the yeast cells in the course of the freezing course of.

4) Buyer and worker comfort.

Take-and-bake pies are about buyer comfort. Some operators will make investments the cash and put out a merchandiser—perhaps a fridge or freezer unit so that folks see it after they come into the restaurant and check out one.

However the labor a part of the method can occur at any level. The take-and-bake pizza doesn’t must be made per order—it may be made within the morning with all the remainder of your prep work, between lunch and dinner, and even on the finish of the night time, earlier than you shut. So I like being able to plug and play: Determine what number of pizzas you’ll want to construct, and do it exterior of your common movement of enterprise. And if it’s a frozen product, then you’ll be able to preserve all of them saved within the freezer and simply preserve refilling your stock.

5) High quality management.

Is your take-and-bake pizza going to be the identical high quality because the one you’ve in your restaurant? In the event you’re an everyday pizzeria that wishes to create an extra take-and-bake providing, it actually comes right down to not compromising the standard of the pizza that you simply make daily. If anyone’s making an attempt my take-and-bake product, I don’t need them to have a lesser expertise that’s going to tarnish the fame of my common model. So earlier than you leap into it, do the correct testing by yourself, ensuring that these bases and toppings are good. I feel that crucial factor is that the expertise for the buyer must be the identical as—or higher than—what they obtain within the restaurant.  

Tracy Morin is PMQ’s senior copy editor and the editor of PizzaVegan.com.