Sunday, February 19, 2012

Pizza Dough

I have been working on the dough for two weeks now. Unlike my cheese fiasco, I am being much more careful with the dough. To that extent I am trying different flour to water ratios, the only quantity I am changing is water; Nothing else is changing. The recipe has been reduced to:
600 grams Flour
1 tbls Sugar, Salt and Yeast
X grams Water

I am measuring the flour and water to the nearest gram. This is important, because the water is changing by as little as 10 grams per test, so a gram off from what I want to test would create a large difference. You will also note that I have removed the fat from the recipe. Gone for now is the 2 tbls of olive oil or butter I used to add.

As for the procedure, I am mixing all of the dry ingredients in the mixer bowl while on top of the scale, I am then adding filtered cold water. I use my stand mixer to knead the dough until it separates from the sides of the bowl. However in the future, as I increase the water content, I will need a different criteria for knowing the dough is "done". From here I put it into a bowl and cover with saran wrap and put it in the fridge for 2-3 days. The dough will rise and become spongy during this time. The dough is taken out and can be used for three pizza crusts. The oven is preheated to 500 ºF with a pizza stone and then allowed to sit for roughly half an hour before baking (I used to start baking as soon as it was preheated). It isn't removed until the cheese is showing signs of browning (~10 minutes).

I started the test with a 1:2 water to flour ratio (0.667), this has been my basic dough ratio for awhile now. The dough came out nice and flavourful, it browned nicely in the oven where it was touching the stone and developed a few big bubbles (3-4 cm above the average top).

The next test was the 13:20 (0.650) which turned out very similarly. This was  mix up, I had intended on increasing the ratio, but I was destracted by something shiney. There was no noticeable difference, both of the doughs were moist and tacky to the touch, but not sticky. Both tasted great.

The current test, which I just finished making is 7:10 (0.700). I have high hopes for this one.

In the future, I am going to increase the ratio by 0.050 until I believe I have over shot my optimal ratio, at which point I will start doing a successive approximation strategy until I find the ratio I like the most.

I forgot to mention that, for consistency sake, I am spraying the top of the dough down with olive oil (a light coating), I'm using pureed reduced salsa for the sauce, 28MF%/42% moisture mozzarella cheese and red pepper topping (placed under the layer of cheese). To prevent sticking to the peel, I am using a dusting of cornmeal.

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