Now that school is back in session, many pizza shops are frantic trying to keep up with the busy rush hours.  There is that strong tendency to want to pre-sauce the dough ahead of time to speed up the delivery process once an order is taken or placed.  Our general philosophy is to not pre-sauce, but that’s easy for us to say when we don’t have to get pizzas out on a Friday night.  So, we’ll concede that pre-saucing is a necessary evil that can be done with a minimum of quality loss to your great pizzas.

If you must pre-sauce, try these few tips to help prevent your crust from developing a soggy texture, or gun line after baking:

1. Brush the formed dough piece with oil before applying the sauce to develop a moisture barrier between the sauce and the crust.
2. Don’t over-dilute your sauce with water.  The thinner the sauce, the greater the tendency for the dough to separate, and soak into the dough both before and during baking.
3. Try not to allow the pre-sauced dough pieces to set for more than an hour before baking.  The longer they set, the greater the tendency for the sauce to begin soaking into the dough.
4. Don’t get into the habit of going one step further and applying cheese to the dough once you have found a way to pre-sauce the dough.  Remember, take and bake pizzas are specially formulated and designed to be fully assembled and then allowed to stand for hours, or even days, without excessive moisture soaking into the dough. 

Follow these easy to remember tips, keep the sauce to dough exposure time to a minimum, and take a little of the work out of making great pizzas in a rush all the time.

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