What would be the best way to freeze and reheat home-made pizza

Question

I have been baking home-made pizza (home-made dough, toppings etc.). with great results, using a pizza steel and a ripping hot regular domestic oven. The base is crispy with leopard spots, and the crust puffy and chewey. The end result is far better than any of the pre-packaged supermarket varieties.

I'd now like to freeze individual pizzas so they could be reheated from frozen in a regular oven without a pizza steel for friends and family etc. What would be the best way to do this to get a pizza close to the original? I'm guessing the best approach would be to part-bake the base, leave it to cool, then add the cold toppings and freeze. My pizzas only need 4 minutes to fully bake, maybe 5 if I am baking a lot as the oven temperature falls.

I'm thinking of part-baking the base for 2 minutes. Would I need to do anything else for best results, including pricking the base or using pie weights to stop the dough rising? Is it worth adding a thin layer of olive oil to stop the dough drying out in the middle of the pie? Are there any toppings that would not freeze/reheat well? As to reheat times, I'm assuming 20 minutes in a 220C fan oven will be adequate, but advice much appreciated.

The dough recipe I use is a regular twice-proved one (4 hours max), with bread flour, water, salt, sugar, yeast and olive oil. I don't use a poolish or long fermentation times, and knead this for 10 minutes in a stand mixer.

Answer 1

Based on personal experience with both my own pizzas, made in a pizza oven and reheated in a regular one, and professionally made high-quality frozen pizzas from a wood-fired oven (Vicolo in San Francisco and Renata in Portland):

Cook the pizza 80-90%; that, is, a "light bake", but almost all the way done, with toppings. Freeze, vacuum-packed.

Instruct your recipients to heat a baking stone, broiling pan, or heavy, inverted sheet pan near the bottom of their oven to 225C/450F without convection for at least 20 minutes, long enough for the oven and the stone/pan to be hot. Slide the still-frozen pizza onto this stone/pan, and heat for 4 to 25 minutes, depending on thickness (4 = Italian thin-crust, 25 = deep-dish).

This gives the reheated pizza a nice toastiness of the crust without overcooking the toppings or drying it out.

As for toppings that work poorly: anything with high water content. Thick slices of zucchini, fresh peppers, chunks of tomato, whole shrimp, etc. Any of these will give off water each time they are handled and make the top of the pizza slimy and damp.