Birth of a pizza

Published 10:50 pm Saturday, February 7, 2009

1. The bad economy has not hindered the pizza business in the least. In fact so much pizza bread items are sold that pizza places, like the Coal Grove Giovanni’s, uses a DoughPro to flatten the dough for the crush of their pizzas as opposed to the traditional method of spinning dough in the air to get it to spread apart.

2. Once the dough is placed on the pan the edges are kneaded and a docker, shown, is used over the dough. The purpose of the docker prevents the dough from bubbling in the middle when cooking and helps to evenly bake the pizza.

3. Distributing sauce around the dough involves hand and wrist motion. After placing sauce in the middle of the dough, pick up the pan and lightly toss and turn the pan around and around. The sauce will evenly distribute around the dough.

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4. Next comes an array of topping that is placed on top of the sauce as opposed to the cheese coming first.

5. Evenly distribute items and make sure nothing is overly clumped together.

6. Pizza is baked at 450 degrees and takes roughly 5:30 to 6 minutes to bake. Shown Coal Grove Giovanni’s manager Lori Delong uses a metal spatula to loosen the dough from the pan after removing the pizza from the oven.

7. A simple pizza slice is used to cut up slice in traditional pie shapes.

8. Dawson Bryant High School junior Wayne Sparks enjoys a piece of pizza after school.