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  • HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List

    Okay so here's the thing — you do not need to spend a lot of money to make good pizza. You need a few specific tools and one ingredient people overspend on for no reason (more on that below). Here's what to grab before week one.

    The Dough Basics (Budget Tier)

    • Flour — All-purpose or bread flour from Macey's or Costco is genuinely fine. Bread flour a little better if you have it, but don't drive around town hunting for it.
    • Yeast — Instant or active dry, whatever's cheapest. A jar lasts forever in the fridge.
    • Salt — Regular table salt or kosher, either works. Just don't skip it, dough without salt tastes like nothing.
    • Olive oil — Doesn't need to be fancy. The Costco jug is what I use.
    • A big bowl — Something with room for the dough to double. Your biggest mixing bowl probably works.
    • Plastic wrap or a shower cap (seriously, an old one works great) — for covering dough in the fridge.
    • A baking sheet — if you don't have a stone yet, this is your backup and it's genuinely fine for learning on.

    Toppings (Budget Tier)

    • Canned crushed tomatoes — good quality here matters more than good quality flour, honestly. San Marzano if you want to splurge, regular crushed if you don't.
    • Mozzarella — block, not pre-shredded, if you can. Shred it yourself, it melts better and costs less.
    • Whatever three toppings you like. That's it. Three. I'll explain in class why less is more here, but plan your shopping list around three, not eight.

    Nice-to-Have Tier (Not Required, But Fun)

    • A pizza stone or steel — this is the single upgrade that'll change your pizza the most. A steel heats up faster and holds heat better, stone is cheaper. Either beats a sheet pan once you've got the hang of things.
    • A pizza peel — the wooden or metal paddle for sliding pizza in and out. You can improvise with a flat baking sheet with no rim for a while. I did.
    • "00" flour — the fancy Italian stuff. I'll be straight with you: I spent forty bucks on this once thinking it'd be the difference-maker. It's a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. Your oven not getting hot enough is a much bigger deal than your flour. Spend your money on the stone before the flour.
    • A bench scraper — cheap, handy, makes cleanup less of a fight with hard water leaving film on everything.
    • Instant-read thermometer — for checking your water temp so you don't do what I did on batch one (killed the yeast with water too hot, baked what my daughter kindly called "fine"). A thermometer costs eight bucks and saves you a sad frisbee of a pizza.

    Shopping Notes

    Flour and yeast: Macey's has everything you need, no need to go further than that. Costco if you're buying in bulk for multiple batches, which honestly makes sense once you're hooked on this.

    Cheese: block mozzarella, whole milk if you can get it, it melts a lot better than the low-moisture stuff.

    Don't buy pre-shredded cheese or pre-made sauce to save time. It's not that much faster and the pizza tastes like it.

    One more thing — up here at our elevation the dry air pulls moisture out of dough faster than you'd expect, so don't be shocked if things behave a little differently than a recipe from a sea-level food blog promises. We'll talk timing in the next handout. For now, just get your supplies together and don't overthink it.

  • HandoutHandout 2: The Cheat Sheet

    Handout 2: The Cheat Sheet

    Okay so here's the thing — you don't need to memorize the whole class. Tape this to your fridge and you're basically fine. Everything else is just me talking.

    Dough Timing (the big one)

    • Mix dough: any night, takes 10 minutes
    • Cold ferment: minimum 24 hours in the fridge, sweet spot is 24–48 hours
    • Don't sluff this part. This is the actual secret. Not the flour, not the oven. Time.
    • If you're rushed and only have 2-3 hours at room temp, fine, you'll get pizza. Just don't expect the same crust. Make peace with it, don't lie to yourself about it.

    Water Temp for Yeast

    • You want 100–110°F. Warm bathwater, basically.
    • Too hot and you kill the yeast dead. Learned this one myself, first batch ever, baked what my daughter generously called "fine." It was a frisbee with sauce on it.
    • If you don't have a thermometer, warm tap water that feels comfortable on your wrist works. Just don't get impatient and crank the hot water heater's worth at it.

    Flour

    • All-purpose or bread flour from Macey's or Costco is genuinely fine.
    • You do not need the fancy "00" flour from a specialty shop. I spent forty bucks proving that to myself so you don't have to. Your oven is the weak link, not your flour.

    Oven / Stone / Steel

    • Preheat way longer than feels reasonable. Whatever number you're thinking, add 15 minutes.
    • A home oven that maxes out around 500–550°F still works great. You're just compensating with time and a hot surface.
    • If you have a stone or steel, get it in the oven while it's still cold and preheating, never add it to an already-hot oven. And never, ever run a hot stone under cold water. It will crack, loudly, and someone in the next room will hear it and know exactly what you did.

    Shaping

    • Rolling pins are for pie. Stretch by hand.
    • You will tear a hole in the middle at some point. That's tuition, not failure. Patch it, keep going, or just call the weird shape a "personal touch." Mine mostly look like Idaho. I've made peace with it.
    • Round is optional. Edible is not.

    Sauce and Cheese — Less Than You Think

    • This is where almost everybody overdoes it. A thin layer of sauce. A light scatter of cheese, not a blanket.
    • If you can still see a little bit of dough color through the cheese before it bakes, you're about right.
    • I know it looks sparse going in. Trust it. Side-by-side with a drowned pizza, thinner wins almost every time.

    Toppings

    • Three max. This isn't a place to empty out the crisper drawer.
    • Less than you want, always. Wet or heavy toppings (fresh mozz, lots of veggies) will make your crust sluff into sog territory if you overload it.

    Elevation Note

    Dry air up here does weird things to dough timing, especially in summer with the AC fighting the heat. Dough can overproof faster than you'd expect. If it smells a little like beer, it's gone too far — that happened to me once leaving dough out overnight in July. Check it a little earlier than the recipe says, especially in warm months.

    If You Only Remember One Thing

    Time is an ingredient. Everything else on this page is details.

  • Worksheet```markdown

    ```markdown # Handout 3: Dough Timeline & Topping Checklist ### Artisan Pizza Dough and Toppings — William Wells

    Okay so here's the thing. This class only works if you actually fill this out and use it at home, not just nod along in the room. Dough doesn't care that you were paying attention on Tuesday if you rush it on Friday. Write your own numbers in the blanks.

    ---

    PART 1: Your Dough Timeline

    Time is an ingredient. Fill in your actual schedule, not the "ideal" one from a book.

    When am I mixing dough? Day: _____________ Time: _____________

    When do I want to eat pizza? Day: _____________ Time: _____________

    Count backward from that. If you've got less than 24 hours between mixing and baking, that's fine, but say it out loud to yourself: this'll be a decent pizza, not a great one. Don't lie to yourself about it. Write your gap here: __________ hours.

    Fridge check — is there room in there for a covered bowl for a full day? Move the milk if you have to. Ask me now if you're not sure your fridge runs cold enough (hard water and weird home fridges do funny things sometimes).

    Room temperature note: our air here is dry, and depending on the season your place might run warm. Dough overproofs faster than you'd think in a hot kitchen in July. If your kitchen's warm, lean toward less time, not more.

    My mix time: _____________ My planned bake time: _____________ Total ferment: _____________ hours (aim for 24 if you can swing it)

    ---

    PART 2: Stretch Check (be honest)

    • [ ] I used my hands, not a rolling pin
    • [ ] It's not round, and I'm at peace with that
    • [ ] No holes, or I patched a hole and it's fine
    • [ ] It sluffs easily off the peel/pan when I shake it

    If it's stuck to the peel, that's a cornmeal or flour problem, not a you problem. Fix it now, not while it's halfway into the oven.

    ---

    PART 3: Sauce and Cheese — Less Than You Think

    Circle what you actually put on, then look at it again before it goes in the oven.

    Sauce: thin layer / medium / heavy (circle one — if you circled heavy, scrape some off)

    Cheese: thin layer / medium / heavy (same deal)

    You should be able to see a little bit of sauce color through gaps in the cheese. If you can't see any red at all, you've got too much cheese. Everybody drowns their pizza. You don't have to.

    ---

    PART 4: Toppings — Pick Three, Max

    1. _____________________
    2. _____________________
    3. _____________________

    A pizza is not a place to use up whatever's wilting in your crisper drawer. Pick three you actually want to taste.

    ---

    PART 5: Oven Check

    - [ ] Stone or steel is in the oven before preheat starts, not after - [ ] Preheat time: oven's "ready" beep time + 15 more minutes, minimum - [ ] Oven temp set to: _____________ (as high as your oven goes, most home ovens top out around 500–550)

    Cold stone is the number one reason home pizza turns out sad. Don't sluff this part.

    ---

    Notes to Myself (what worked, what didn't)

    _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________

    Bring this back next class. I'll ask what happened, and "it was fine" isn't an answer I'll let you get away with. 👍 ```

  • HandoutHandout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Handout 4: Troubleshooting Guide

    Okay so here's the thing — every single problem on this list, I have personally caused in my own kitchen. This isn't theory. This is me narrating my own mistakes so you don't have to make them too. Find your symptom, read the fix, move on with your life.

    ---

    1. Dough won't rise at all. Your yeast is dead. Probably the water was too hot when you mixed it. I did this on my very first batch — killed the yeast, baked what my daughter generously called "fine" when she meant "a frisbee with sauce." Water should feel like warm bathwater, not hot. If you're not sure, err cooler. Cool and slow beats hot and dead.

    2. Dough rose too fast and now it's collapsed and smells like beer. You overproofed it. This happens more here than you'd think — our dry air and a hot house in July can push fermentation way faster than you expect. Once it smells boozy and deflates when you poke it, it's done, don't fight it. Next time, less time at room temp, more time in the fridge.

    3. Dough tears when you stretch it. You're rushing, or the gluten hasn't developed enough, or both. First time I hand-stretched instead of using a rolling pin (which — don't, rolling pins are for pie) I tore a hole clean through and tried to patch it and made it worse. Ended up with something shaped like Idaho. Ate it anyway. If it tears, don't panic-patch. Pinch it together, let it rest five minutes, try again.

    4. Dough keeps springing back and won't stretch. The gluten's tight and needs a rest. Walk away for ten minutes. Go check on something else. It'll relax and stretch easier when you come back. Don't muscle it, that's how you tear it (see above).

    5. Crust is pale and floppy, not crisp. Your oven wasn't actually hot enough. This is the number one issue, hands down. Whatever preheat time you think is reasonable, add fifteen minutes. A cold stone or steel is the difference between sad and good. I don't care what flour you used, if your oven's not ripping hot this is what happens.

    6. Bottom of the pizza is burnt but the top's not done. Opposite problem, and usually it means your stone's been in there so long it's basically a branding iron, or your oven runs hot at the bottom. Try a rack position slightly higher, or pull back your time a touch and check often the first few tries. Every oven's a little different — get to know yours.

    7. Pizza won't slide off the peel. It sluffed onto the peel wet, or it sat too long before you launched it. Flour or cornmeal under the dough, and don't dawdle once it's assembled — top it, launch it, don't let it sit and get sticky. If it's stuck, don't yank it. Work a bench scraper gently underneath.

    8. Crust is dense and bready instead of light. Not enough fermentation time. I know I keep saying this but time really is the ingredient people skip. A same-day dough is never going to be as good as one that sat in the fridge 24 hours. If you're always rushing it, that's the fix, not the flour, not the technique.

    9. Toppings slide off or the whole thing's soggy in the middle. Too much sauce, too much cheese. Everybody does this. Less than you think you need, on both counts. A thin layer of good sauce beats a flood of average sauce every time, and you should be able to see a little bit of crust structure through the cheese, not a solid cheese lid.

    10. Cracked your pizza stone. Don't run a hot stone under cold water. I did this exactly once, heard a crack from across the house, and my wife walked in and just said "what did you do." Let it cool on its own, on the counter, away from drafts.

    If your dough still isn't cooperating after all this — bring it to class. Bring the sad one. That's honestly the most useful thing you can hand me.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —so I told him, "William, you cannot bring the frisbee pizza to a podcast recording," and he brought it anyway. It's still on his counter apparently.

    WILLIAM: It's a warning system. I look at it, I remember, I don't kill the yeast again. It's working great.

    JESS: Okay, for people just tuning in, this is episode one of Artisan Pizza Dough and Toppings, I'm Jess, I run the podcast side of things for Utah Community Learning, and this is William, who is teaching the class.

    WILLIAM: Which I want to say up front, I'm not a chef. Phlebotomist. Draw blood for a living. Got stubborn about pizza on the side and it kind of took over.

    JESS: How stubborn are we talking.

    WILLIAM: Four months of bad pizza before anything good happened. My daughter Evangeline, she was young enough to still be honest with me, and I asked her what she thought of one of my early ones and she said "it's fine." Which, if you have kids, you know that's not a compliment. That's a kid being polite about a disaster.

    JESS: What was wrong with it.

    WILLIAM: Water was too hot, killed the yeast before it even had a chance, and what came out of the oven was basically a frisbee with sauce on it. Hard, flat, no life to it. I kept that thing on the counter for like a day just to look at it. Little reminder.

    JESS: This is the frisbee.

    WILLIAM: This is the original frisbee, yeah. There've been others since but that was the first.

    JESS: Okay so real talk, for someone listening right now who's never coming to the class, who's just got a pizza tonight they want to be better — what's one thing they can actually do.

    WILLIAM: Don't buy the fancy flour.

    JESS: That's it?

    WILLIAM: That's a big one, actually. I spent forty bucks on this "00" flour from a specialty place thinking that was the secret. Came home, made pizza, and it was fine, not amazing. Turned out the stuff at Macey's works nearly as well for a home oven, because here's the thing — a home oven maxes out around 550 degrees. That fancy flour is built for ovens running 800, 900 degrees. You're not that oven. I felt like an idiot honestly. Spent effort and money on the wrong problem.

    JESS: So what's the right problem.

    WILLIAM: Your oven's not hot enough, and you're probably not preheating it long enough either. Whatever you think is enough time for your stone or your steel to heat up, add fifteen minutes. That's the free tip. Skip the forty-dollar flour, give your oven more time to actually get hot. Cold surface is the number one reason home pizza turns out sad.

    JESS: I feel personally attacked, I definitely underheat my oven.

    WILLIAM: Everybody does. It doesn't feel reasonable, waiting that long, standing there. But it's the difference between a crust that's got some life in it and one that just sort of sits there being bread.

    JESS: Okay, so in this actual class, we're doing dough from scratch, right, over how many sessions?

    WILLIAM: Four sessions. This first one's really just us talking, getting oriented, so nobody shows up next week not knowing what they signed up for. Session two we're mixing dough together and I'm gonna talk about cold fermentation, which — I stumbled into that one by accident, made a batch, got called into an early shift at work, forgot about the dough in the fridge for two days.

    JESS: Two days, on accident?

    WILLIAM: On accident. And it was the best crust I'd ever made. I had no idea why. Bothered me enough that I spent like a week reading about fermentation instead of doing anything useful with my life. Turns out time is basically an ingredient. You're not rushing dough, you're setting it up and walking away from it.

    JESS: So next session is the mixing.

    WILLIAM: Mixing, and I'll talk through why the timing works the way it does, best I understand it anyway. I'll be honest in the room too, some of the chemistry I just know from doing it a hundred times, not because I could pass a test on it.

    JESS: That's fair. Anything people should bring, or think about before then?

    WILLIAM: Just come with your hands ready to get messy. We're not using rolling pins in this class.

    JESS: Controversial.

    WILLIAM: Very controversial, I've had people push back on me about it. Rolling pins are for pie, in my opinion. You stretch dough by hand, you're gonna tear a hole in it the first few times, it's gonna come out looking like Idaho instead of a circle. That's fine. That's the tuition you pay.

    JESS: Idaho.

    WILLIAM: Or Ohio. I've made a few states nobody's named yet, honestly. Doesn't matter. Tastes the same shaped weird.

    JESS: Alright, that's episode one. Next time we're actually getting our hands in dough, William's bringing the fermentation talk, and I'm sure at some point somebody's gonna ask about the frisbee.

    WILLIAM: It'll come up. It always comes up.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —so I'm holding this frisbee, right, and I genuinely thought that's just what a first pizza looks like.

    WILLIAM: It is not what a first pizza looks like. It's what a first pizza looks like when you kill the yeast with water that's too hot. There's a difference.

    JESS: Fine, noted. Okay, for people just joining us, this is episode two, we're talking dough for the "Artisan Pizza Dough and Toppings" class, William's the instructor, I just ask questions and try not to get sauce on the mic.

    WILLIAM: You did last time.

    JESS: I did last time. Anyway. Last episode we talked cold fermentation, the whole "time is an ingredient" thing. I want to get into toppings today because I feel like that's where people either go real simple or go completely off the rails.

    WILLIAM: Off the rails is generous. People drown their pizzas. That's the main thing I see. Too much sauce, way too much cheese, and then you can't even taste the crust you spent twenty-four hours on. Which, if you think about it, is a little sad.

    JESS: You've said this before and I still don't fully believe you.

    WILLIAM: I know. Everybody says that until they do the side-by-side. Less sauce, thin layer, good stuff, not a ladle full. Cheese the same way, less than feels right. Three toppings max. A pizza's not a place to use up whatever's dying in your fridge.

    JESS: Okay but here's a real question people ask me — do you need the fancy flour for any of this to work?

    WILLIAM: No. And I say that as a guy who blew forty bucks finding out. I bought this specialty "00" flour thinking it was going to change my life, and it's fine, it's nice, but it's not the thing standing between you and good pizza. Your oven not being hot enough is the thing. I could've spent that forty dollars on more preheat time, basically, if that were a purchasable item.

    JESS: Is that the practical tip? Because I want to give people something they can use today, no class required.

    WILLIAM: That's a good chunk of it, yeah. Preheat way longer than feels reasonable. Whatever number you think is enough for your stone or your steel, add fifteen minutes. Cold surface is the number one reason home pizza turns out sad. People pull the stone out after twenty minutes, it looks hot, it is lying to you.

    JESS: I did not know a pizza stone could lie.

    WILLIAM: Constantly. That's basically its whole personality.

    JESS: Okay, I want the topping anecdote. You told me there's one about your brother.

    WILLIAM: Blake, yeah. So he dared me once — we were doing pizza at my place, and he's like, dip the crust in fry sauce. And I'm from here, so I know fry sauce, but I'd never thought of it as a pizza thing. I did it kind of as a joke to shut him up.

    JESS: And?

    WILLIAM: It's good. It's genuinely good. I will not put that on a forum, I will not write it in the class handout, but if you ask me in person, standing right in front of me, I'll tell you it works. Something about the tang cutting the crust.

    JESS: This is a very Utah thing to gatekeep.

    WILLIAM: I'm not gatekeeping, I'm managing my reputation. There's a difference.

    JESS: Sure. Okay, last thing — what's next session? People listening who haven't signed up yet, what are they missing.

    WILLIAM: Next time is stretching and shaping, which is the part where I get to publicly not be good at making a round pizza. Mine come out shaped like states nobody's heard of. I tore a hole clean through one once trying to patch it and made it worse, ended up with something that looked like Idaho. Ate it anyway, it was fine, it just wasn't a circle.

    JESS: That's oddly comforting.

    WILLIAM: That's the point. I'd rather you mess up a stretch in class where I can catch it than have it happen at home and you just give up on the whole thing. Hands in the dough early, that's how I run it. We'll do that, then bake a couple right there and compare a thin-sauce one to a drowned one so you can see what I've been complaining about.

    JESS: Taste-test as evidence. I like it.

    WILLIAM: Real talk, it's the only way people actually believe me.

    JESS: Alright, that's episode two. Come for the dough, stay for the fry sauce opinions he won't put in writing.

    WILLIAM: I said I'd tell you in person. This counts as in person.

  • podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3

    Audio coming soon — show notes below.

    JESS: —so you're telling me the crack was loud enough that Ashlie heard it from another room.

    WILLIAM: Loud. Like a gunshot almost. I ran the stone under cold water while it was still hot from the oven because I wasn't thinking, and it just went. She comes in and goes "what did you do" before she even sees it.

    JESS: That's not even the anecdote I asked you to tell.

    WILLIAM: Oh, right, no. You wanted the Evangeline one.

    JESS: The stretching one. People liked it in your notes.

    WILLIAM: Yeah okay. So this was maybe a year ago. She's fifteen, and fifteen means she's on her phone roughly all the time, which is fine, that's not a complaint, that's just the age. But this one night she was around while I was doing dough and she just... started helping. Didn't ask, didn't make it a whole thing. Stretched a whole pizza herself. Hand-stretched, no rolling pin, and it wasn't even shaped weird like mine usually are.

    JESS: Better than yours?

    WILLIAM: Rounder than mine, put it that way. I didn't say much about it in the moment. You don't want to make a big deal out of a kid doing a normal thing or they clam up. But I took a picture of it after. Still got it on my phone.

    JESS: That's a nice one.

    WILLIAM: It's a small thing. I like that it's small.

    JESS: Okay, so today's episode, we're between session two and session three. People just did their first stretch attempt last week.

    WILLIAM: Which for most of them looked like a country. I mean that. I had one dough that was basically Ohio.

    JESS: You always say that.

    WILLIAM: Because it's always true! Mine never come out round either, and I've been doing this for years. I tell people on day one, if you're waiting for round, you'll wait forever. Get it thin and even, that's the actual goal. Round is a bonus.

    JESS: Let's give the podcast listeners who aren't in the room something they can use tonight. Not a whole lesson, just one thing.

    WILLIAM: Okay, real talk, here's the one thing. Preheat your oven way longer than feels reasonable. Whatever number you think is enough for your stone or your steel, add fifteen minutes to it. People do twenty minutes and think that's plenty and it's not, especially up here.

    JESS: Why especially up here?

    WILLIAM: Elevation messes with heat retention a little, and honestly our ovens at home are just not built for pizza the way a wood-fired oven is. A cold surface is the number one reason home pizza turns out sad. Sad meaning pale, floppy, doesn't have that char on the bottom. You put dough on a stone that's not actually hot all the way through and you get something that steams instead of bakes.

    JESS: So forty-five minutes of preheat.

    WILLIAM: I do forty-five, some people do an hour. It sounds like a lot. It's the difference between a good crust and a frisbee with sauce on it, which — don't get me started, that's a whole other episode's worth of story.

    JESS: We'll get there eventually.

    WILLIAM: We will not sluff that one, don't worry.

    JESS: Alright. So next session is toppings and sauce, right?

    WILLIAM: Yep. And I'll warn everybody now same as I warn them in class — I'm gonna tell you to use less sauce and less cheese than you think you want, and people don't believe me until they taste it side by side. Everybody drowns their pizza. You do a thin layer of good sauce and cheese that doesn't hide the crust, and suddenly you can taste the thing you spent two days fermenting instead of just tasting cheese.

    JESS: Two days.

    WILLIAM: Time's an ingredient. We've said it before, we'll say it again next week probably.

    JESS: Anything people should bring or think about before session three?

    WILLIAM: Just come hungry. And maybe think about what three toppings you'd actually want, because that's the max I let people use in class. Three, and less of each than feels right. It's not a place to use up whatever's going bad in your fridge.

    JESS: Noted. Alright, that's it for this one —

    WILLIAM: Oh — fry sauce on the crust, by the way. Somebody's gonna ask, so I'm just putting it out there now. It's good. I won't say it on a forum, but I'll say it here apparently.

    JESS: You just said it on a podcast.

    WILLIAM: That's different somehow. Don't ask me how.

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