The Perfect Pizza Package by Wayne Wong on Capture Kern County

I dig it! Skip it Love it ‹ › Buy prints Share on Facebook Tweet Google+ Auto flow: off

The Perfect Pizza Package

Martin Varga inspired me to come up with a pizza that would fit exactly in my Zip-Loc plates. So it was back to being the Mad Scientist....:)

The solution was to use 9 in. cake pans, being sure to cool remove the pizza from the pan and cool on a wire rack. I found that using a pizza cutter wheel was the easiest way tool to separate the edges from the sides of the pan. You then get clean removal and no hard to get off stuck-on pieces. ;BTW, I make it a point to clean the pan thoroughly on both sides, on the top and underside of the rims with Kleen-King stainless steel cleaner. This keeps the pan not only looking great, but will also remove hard to see spots of oil, flour, cheese, etc. that will not be removed by the dishwasher and simply get even harder to remove afterwards. Baked on spots are a big no-no....they cause too much work.

For cutting the pizza, I have three tools, wheel cutter, rolling cutter, and serrated bread knife. each has its advantages.

For a photo shoot, just cut in quarters, especially for the guys. Otherwise, 8 cut is best. Just be sure to put the sectors in the plate in order, because each sector will not be perfect and will not be interchangeable...:)

The second enhancement was to use straight tomato paste (Contadina) instead of sauce.or diced tomatoes. This reduced the moisture and kept the crust from getting soggy.

You can see from the photo that the pizza fits perfectly from top to bottom and along the circumference!

The is the perfect food and packaging for a photo shoot!

I have to say, I love wielding my big wooden rolling pin; rolling out the dough gives a unique tactile experience....just like shooting manual instead of auto...very satisfying!

I also love to use cornmeal in the dough and on the pan. Adding plenty of basil to the dough also gives a very nice flavor and texture. I have almost gone through an entire box of corneal this year just in pizza crust...can you believe that?

Pizza is also great for using olive oil. A lot of people don't realize that once you open a bottle of olive oil, it will go bad very quickly. Two months is max from my experience.