Pizza dough/technique advice

The question of pizza dough could be right up there with "what is the sound of one hand clapping" as far as a baffling one.

There are a few things I have learned... but still have yet to perfect, no matter what your dough recipe (half cake flour, half regular... all regular... whatever you find).
The main thing I have learned is that you need to let it proof more than you may want to, both to develop it's flavor and some gluten strains to give it some chew. Now, does that mean I have gotten a crust that I am consistently happy with? Sadly, no.
The higher gluten the flour the better... though I can't find find specifically high gluten flour in the stores.

Now for the GOOD news. One of the biggest parts of good, thin, chewy dough is a high temp oven... which you have in the egg! aim for 550-600. But some joints go 800 for like 10 minutes.

Hope these vague hints help!

a

I just made some pizza's last weekend and for the most part turned out decent. I didn't have time to make my dough so I bought frozen store bought. To me was fine but I'm sure some will differ on that. I set the dough out on a oiled cookie sheet and covered with a damp towel and left it rise during the day. I came home it was huge made my homemade pizza sauce rolled out the dough put the sauce on and toppings. Cooked it on the egg about 8 minutes and was pretty good. It got over cooked by a minute or so. I think the dough was fine.

Tweev

Do give that recipie a try. It makes a good crust. The dough will be wet and sticky, so be ready for that.

Hi,

I have tried that recipe and liked it. Forgot to take a picture of the finished product though. There's a writeup of my cook using that dough on our blog at http://www.fearlesskitchen.com/2009/09/recipe-pizza-party-guest-post-from-fearless-grill.html

One thing I discovered when using that recipe is that while the recipe claims you get 6 pizzas out of one batch, we weren't able to roll them out thin enough in that proportion to cover the large BGE stone. We ended up getting 5 per batch after splitting up one ball among the others.

-John

I’ve shared this one before…And will do so again, because it seems to be a NEVER fail for me.
It can rise, it can be used right from the bowl, it can be thick or thin…It’s crazy!
I do my pies at 450 to 475 F. which may be cooler then some / most. But it works for us!

MOM'S PIZZA DOUGH
Dad’s Kitchen
(This is enough dough for two 13” thin crusts)

1 pk. Dry yeast
1 C. warm (100 F.) water
1 t. sugar
1 t. salt
2 T. olive oil
2-1/2 C. flour (all purpose / un bleached)
1/2 C. additional flour for the knead

1)) Dissolve the yeast in the water and let stand for about 5 minutes.

2)) Add all the remaining ingredients and mix well with a spoon.

3)) In the bowl…Add small amounts of the “kneading” flour, punching in with your fist until the dough cleanly pulls away from the sides of the bowl. This will take, more or less, about 1/2 C.
Raise it if you wish or pull it from the bowl and go for it.

4)) Using you hands spread / stretch the dough to the desired shape

And a tip: Rub in a few drops of olive oil into your hands before placing / stretching the dough.

I like the sound of this one. Going to have to give this a try

Hungry Celeste wrote:

I bought some of King Arthur's "italian" style, which is a 00 low-protein clone, but I wasn't happy with the results.

Celeste,

I agree - I was also disappointed with that flour for pizza.

I tried all Caputo 00 twice and found it didn't brown as well, plus the dough was very slack and much harder to shape. I've heard it works best for neapolitan-style, very high heat with minimal toppings.

High gluten flour generally works best for me, with the long ferments. It has enough structure to support good air bubble formation and has a nice "hand" even after 6 days in the fridge - very easy to shape, including tossing. I do find the versions I do with part Caputo to be challenging to toss, but easy enough to stretch into place.

I spent a little time over the winter experimenting with doughs that had more olive oil and/or sugar added (using the BBA neo-neapolitan recipe and going with both, just one or the other, and neither). In every case except those with no oil or sugar I found that I didn't get the flavor development I was looking for. Something about oil and sugar seemed to block it and the crust just tasted like bread to us.

I do add just a tiny drip of oil and honey each in my recipe. The touch of oil helps with the extensibility just enough that the dough doesn't "fight back" during shaping. And the tiny bit of honey seems to help sustain the yeast for longer ferments. In fact, if I forget to plan ahead and have to make the dough within 4 days of use, I omit the honey.

Great blog, BTW! I need to add that to my subscribed feeds....

-M

I just recently learned that pizza places in Naples make a custom blend of low-protein 00 and higher protein hard wheat flour (called "manitoba" by some Italian bakers)...which is encouraging me to do a blended crust. I tend to prefer thinner crusts made with very little or no oil. For long-keeping, we agree: high-gluten dough just lasts & lasts, improving along the way (until it's dead). Guess that's why commercial American pizzerias swear by it; it's reliable and extremely easy to work.