Dear Frugal Upstate:
Photo by Renee Silverman
I’m am sure you have posted about this somewhere but I can’t remember!
Can you make the Pizza Hut Crust Clone recipe ahead of time or do you make it and par-bake it right away. I’m just wondering if it can be frozen or refrigerated??
Thanks!!! and love your site!
Kristie
Well Kristie, most of the time I just make the crust up as I am going to use it–since I work from a home office it’s easy to just throw it together around 3pm and have it ready for suppertime! I’ve even gone so far as to make up ahead of time 4 or 5 ziplock bags full of all the dry ingredients (sans yeast) and then stick a note inside with what wet ingredients need to be added so that it’s super easy!
(note: this is sort of like the method I show at the bottom of my “Weekly Bread Baking Method” post)
There are times that I have made the crust and par baked it (350 for about 8 minutes) then either held on to it until later that day or frozen it parbaked. Usually I just do that by sticking it on a cookie sheet and layering wax paper in between the crusts. When they are frozen I lightly wrap in saran wrap and return them to the freezer. Then I try to use them up fairly soon.
I have frozen the recipe as a big lump of dough-and while the quality was ok, I preferred it either fresh or par baked. Also I have a hard time getting the timing right for thawing a big lump o dough-either it was done too soon & started rising again or it was still partially frozen when I wanted to use it. With the parbaked and then frozen crust I could just put all the toppings on it frozen and throw it in the oven like that, adding just a few minutes.
I’m all about easy. 
I have on a few occasions just refridgerated it for a day-punching it down once or twice to make sure it didn’t overflow the container. I think that it loses some of the texture that way-the baking soda has already done it’s thing hours ago. Again it’s fine-I’m sure your family will still eat it, but not my favorite way.
I’ll be honest-with things like this you can probably get it to work no matter what you do-but the quality will be affected a bit. Personally, even with my least favorite of the methods, once you top it with sauce, a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese, and then the regular mozzarella and toppings you are still beating the pants off a really cheapo frozen pizza.
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I always keep pizza dough in the freezer, and I find that it freezes quite well — I make or buy a batch, divide it into portions and freeze, then throw one in the fridge before I go to work, and when I get home, I have thawed dough, ready to shape and bake.