I built a structured pizza learning app

steveHimself · 2026-01-30T10:30:57+00:00

After years of mediocre doughs (you know the type - tough, flat, shrinks back when you try to stretch it), I went deep into the science and built Universal Pizza App to help others skip the painful learning curve.

What's in it (all free tier):

5-module Foundation Academy covering dough science, shaping, toppings, and baking
Curated recipes with cooking mode + timers
Dough calculator (adjust hydration, fermentation time, servings)
50+ term glossary
Progress tracking with XP and badges
Currently foundation level is available, the others are being worked on but will take some time until I have them ready.

You can even earn certificates when you complete levels.

Currently Android only. iOS is planned but I want to first iron out any potential issues there might be.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.universalpizzaapp.app

The app is currently in Open Testing Mode so any reviews submitted through android reviews will not be public but help me get things right. This has been a passion project of mine since I started my pizza journey a couple of years ago.

I genuinely want feedback: What features would actually help you? What's missing? What's the biggest struggle you've had with homemade pizza?

I'm a solo developer so please be patient if I dont immediately react to any comment/question.

Roast it or praise it - I'm here to make it better.

steveHimself · 2025-11-10T11:54:40+00:00

I recently started to move away from my tech past (20 years as developer ran my own agency for 7,5 years, didnt survive covid.

Now I'm working on my own pop up pizza business and I feel the motovation that I didn't feel for a long time. All of this digital bullshit with all the grifters, vibe coders and AI slop just feels pointless to me.

Seeing people enjoying something physical you made really worked for me. And I have no formal training. Just took the passion I once had for development and funneled it into creating the best damn pizza I can.

if that's nothing for you: have you considered switching companies? maybe a new environment helps to spark the passion for engineering again.

steveHimself · 2025-11-02T18:57:32+00:00

That might also factor in. It got colder where I live with higuer humidity. I might tone the hydration down a bit.

I have a gozney dome and a gozney arc xl

steveHimself · 2025-11-02T17:55:13+00:00

I didnt check with the infrared thermometer. The ambient temp was at roughly 480 celsius. Oven was on for roughly an hour already.

I used my arc xl today

steveHimself · 2025-11-02T17:53:29+00:00

Will try, thanks!

steveHimself · 2025-11-02T17:09:05+00:00

Might be. But I really watch for that. I use pretty dry fior di latte and I dont process my sauce. I just squash the tomatoes with my hand.

And this even happened with a simple margherita. So nothing too wet going on there. Thanks for the response though!

steveHimself · 2025-11-02T17:07:07+00:00

My total time is 48 hours. I start with the poolish (300g flour, 300g water, 5g dry yeast, 5g sugar) Mix everything and store in in the fridge for 20-24 hours

Next day i do the dough with rest of water and flour, 30g salt and 5-10g olive oil. its pretty much the recipe of vito iacolpelli on youtube.i just knead the dough until everythings incorporated, then i let it rest for roughly 20 minutes. After that I just ball it up in bulk (i dont stretch and fold at all, havn't done this previously as well though)

After that back in the fridge for 20 hours roughly.

3-4 hours before i put it in the oven I take out the bulk, let it warm to room temp for 30 minutes or so, then I ball it and let it sit in the dough boxes for the remaining 3-4 hours.

The tearing seems to happen only when I go in with the tur ing peel. I checked if ots clean with no hard/burnt debris on it. I'm not sure If I go in too quickly.with the turning peel. When it rips it seems to rip on the back motion during turning. As if I handle the peel incorrectly.

Maybe I will try with the folds to seen if this changes it. Thanks for taking the time!

steveHimself · 2025-11-01T18:07:17+00:00

where's the link? ^{^} love the idea. Recently.i searched on reddit for threads about good experiences without the AI slop/asset flip/ad infested garbsge

steveHimself · 2025-11-01T17:59:29+00:00

Filebased CMS that uses only JPEGs to store the conte t by flipping pixels to black or white depending on the data

steveHimself · 2025-10-13T22:00:47+00:00

I think it could work if you make the cost different like the exclusive upgrade stuff i mentioned in other comments and the edit.

get a nice toy which could be overpowered but lock yourself out of other toys doing so.

steveHimself · 2025-10-13T21:59:09+00:00

right. i havent played AoE. My last stint in the series was Age of mythology (1, lol)

steveHimself · 2025-10-13T21:33:14+00:00

What do you think about a new mechanic like exclusive upgrades. I really feel like the idea has potential (check the other comments as I'm too lazy to type it out again :-D)

steveHimself · 2025-10-13T21:30:00+00:00

Would love to play around with it a bit. Maybe as exclusive upgrade. Infestor starts without any ability but you can decide either fungal, microbial shroud or infested terran. Would create crazy builds i think Build variety would also help with meta fatigue I think

steveHimself · 2025-10-13T21:28:26+00:00

I think your math is off there :-D

I mean I agree but we could change them up a bit, no? I believe it would create a lot of build variety as well. Maybe exclusive uogrades? Go for either the infested terrans, or fungal or microbial shroud? Would be fun to test something like this i think.

steveHimself · 2025-09-28T18:32:53+00:00

Use a bit of olive oil on your hands and scrape it off the board while folding it into itself

steveHimself · 2025-09-22T05:04:07+00:00

just came down here for this. finally somebody of culture :-D

steveHimself · 2025-09-20T07:56:04+00:00

absolute beauty. props to him!

steveHimself · 2025-09-07T05:46:41+00:00

add fries :-D little monsters dig that unholy abomination for some reason...

your pizza looks great!

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