DeSano's Pizza Class

DeSano's Pizza Class

00 flour

 I took another USN Evening Class at one of my favorite new pizza places in town - DeSano's Pizza Bakery.  I don't make pizza at home because making dough takes too long, it really needs to sit over night, and I usually am not thinking a day ahead of time for making dinner.  Also, buying pre-made dough out of the blue can is just gross, the pre-made disks hanging in a plastic bag are just as gross, and it is just easy to go out for pizza and leave the dough making to the professionals.

my dough ball

I took this class to see if I can make pizza at home, and this class just proves that if I want pizza, I just need to go out for pizza to a place like DeSano's.  The time it takes to make the dough and let it rise correctly, and then amassing the ingredients, takes more time and money than it does to go to DeSano's and order a pizza.  Also, I can't get my electric oven hot enough to bake the dough right. At DeSano's it only takes about 90 seconds to bake a pizza in the super hot wood burning oven.

wood burning pizza oven

DeSano's are pros at making pizza.  They have a set menu with various flavor profiles,  They do not let customers deviate from the set menu.  The toppings at DeSano's are not your typical pizza parlor toppings, they are specifically chosen for their distinct flavor and texture that are combined specifically with other premium ingredients to make a "wow" experience for pizza.  After taking the pizza class, I am totally on board with DeSano's about not deviating from the flavor profiles listed on the menu.  I just cannot make a combination better than they can.  I also like the quality, taste and texture of DeSano's pizza toppings.  They do not skimp on the quality.  There are 2 ways to ruin a pizza, and it is making a bad dough and using bad toppings.  DeSano's dough is great, and toppings are great.

pizza spatula

While at the class, we learned a lot about dough, yeast, flour, warm water, kneading, proofing, handling, stretching, baking, turning, doming and eating the dough.  We got to take some dough home to make our own pizza.  The problem with making pizza at home is that I don't have DeSano's toppings at hand.

our pizza

When we got home, we tried to make pizza.  It wasn't nearly as good as DeSano's, it was twice as expensive because of the cost of ingredients, it is way wasteful because we have leftover ingredients that I don't know what to do with them, but it was a good homemade pizza.  We went to Trader Joes and Harris Teeter for the toppings.  At TJ, I got jarred pizza sauce, a trio of sliced Italian style salami, shredded mozzarella, and ricotta totaling about $25.  The Man went to Harris Teeter and got peppadews in a jar $9.  I already had an onion at home $1.  Olive oil $1 (because I use an organic single grower CA olive oil and it is really good).  So toppings for $36 is not a cheap pizza, rather it costs us twice as much to make the pizza at home as it does going to DeSano's for pizza.

The verdict of homemade pizza, expensive, but the TJ and Harris Teeter toppings were pretty good.  I would like to use fresh mozzarella from Lazzaroli's next time ($16, which would make the total be $52 for a homemade pizza), but we can only get the mozzarella on Saturdays, and the pizza making was on a Wednesday so we had to stick with shredded mozzarella in a bag.  Eh, time, effort and money, it is actually cheaper and less wasteful to go to DeSano's.