This month I took some time to do some visiting in Pittsburgh. While there, we made a trip to the strip district for some shopping. I wandered into the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company unaware that inside was a treasure for the home pizza maker. As soon as I walked through the door I saw a large wall of canned tomatoes. Taking a closer look, I realized that many of the brands I’ve read about were all for sale there. I saw La Valla, Escalon 6-in-1, and Bella brands as well as some others from the San Marzano region. In addition to tomato products, they also sell two famous brands of pizza flour - Caputo 00 Pizzeria and All Trumps bromated flour. The flour could be purchased in 5 lb or 50 lb bags at a very reasonable price. The cost of shipping these products is what had kept me from experimenting with them in the past. As such, I was extremely excited to load up my car with flour and tomato cans.

Shop at Pennsylvania Macaroni Company

As soon as I got home I tore into both flour bags and made large dough batches from both brands. From my research, I knew that the Caputo 00 flour was designed for very high temperature ovens. Since I was making this pizza at home, the best I could do was plan to turn it up to 550 degrees and hope for the best (more on this in a future post). I made the Caputo flour blanks into classic Napoletana magherita pizzas using the La Valla tomatoes and some fresh cheese and basil. The results were good, but I clearly need more heat in order to get this dough to perform.

The real surprise was the All Trumps flour. I used the All Trumps to bake a New York Style pizza in all of it’s glory. Since All Trumps is formulated for lower oven temperatures, it is perfectly suited for the home oven. The dough recipe I used was a modified Lehman recipe which had 65% water. Below is the dough recipe I used:

Flour (100%): 337.4 g | 11.9 oz | 0.74 lbs
Water (65%): 219.31 g | 7.74 oz | 0.48 lbs
IDY (1.36%): 4.59 g | 0.16 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.52 tsp | 0.51 tbsp
Salt (1.69%): 5.7 g | 0.2 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.19 tsp | 0.4 tbsp
Total (168.05%): 567 g | 20 oz | 1.25 lbs

I mixed the IDY into a small amount of the water (water should be around 100 degrees) and let it dissolve for about 10 minutes. Then I mixed that yeast water into the rest of the water in the mixer bowl along with the salt. Next, I added the flour slowly with the mixer on low speed for around 5 minutes until it looked well mixed. Then, I mixed for 5 minutes on second speed. When the dough looked smooth, I removed it and formed 20 oz balls ready for the refrigerator. The dough smelled, looked and felt wonderful after a 48 hour cold rise.

I stretched it onto a pizza screen and topped it with my Traditional Sauce with Escalon 6-in-1 tomatoes for the base. I then layered whole milk mozzerella cheese and chopped pepperoni and baked it for 8 mnutes at 485 degrees.

The pizza had great oven spring, a wonderful chewy crumb and a well darkened crust rim complete with the tiny blisters that are the hallmark of high hydration dough. The flavor and texture of this dough easily matched and probably exceeded that of the pizzas I had made with KASL several months ago. Best of all, I could purchase All Trumps for the same price that I pay for flour at my local grocer. In fact, I think I will change to this flour for all of my traditional style pizza making from now on - it’s that good.

Here are some shots of the various pizzas we made from the dough - Enjoy!

After having success this week with Grandma Pizza, I had leftover San Marzano tomatoes and some remaining fresh basil. When I peeked into the refrigerator and realized that the second dough ball of my double batch remained I was compelled to go another round.

Being somewhat hungry and having no fresh mozzarella I decided to go for a round pie. Since the dough ball was larger than normal, I opted to stretch it for a nice large crust. Next, I coated the dough with olive oil and a healthy heap of shredded mozzarella. I topped the cheese with the last of my chopped basil as well as some salt, oregano and pepper.

I prepped the tomatoes again by squeezing much of the water out and combining them in a large bowl to be crushed. When they were semi-pureed I spread them liberally onto the pizza and placed it in the oven to bake at 480 degrees for 9 minutes.

I was pleasantly surprised by this quick pizza. It had some of the classic flavor from the Grandma Pizza enjoyed the night before even without the classy cheesy and fresh roasted garlic. This pie, however would be much cheaper to make and a bit quicker too. It also had far less olive oil as it was baked on a screen and not fried in a pan.

I’ll keep this little gem in my mind as a great classic tasting option when cost is a consideration. Next time, I’ll try domestic peeled tomatoes and see if that destroys the amazing combination of flavors.

NOTE: I topped the pizza with fresh Parmesan after taking photos and that was a good thing.

This weekend I went for round two of my attempts at creating Grandma Pizza at home. Originally inspired to try this recipe after tasting a “grandma pizza” at a pizza shop in Harrisburg, PA then instructed by Chef Bruno in this video Chef Bruno Makes Grandma Pizza I was ready to begin trying some variations on my first attempt.

The basic approach remained the same. I used my traditional recipe, a bit wet (slightly higher water) for the dough. It was very soft, but not sticky coming out of the bowl. This was allowed to rest in the refrigerator over night in about 22 oz. balls. The next day around noon, I took the ball out of the oven and stretched it into a cookie sheet which was lightly coated with olive oil. Chef Bruno says to use a lot of oil, but I had too much oil on my first attempt, so I cut back this time by simply wiping the pan with an oiled paper towel, rather than allowing puddles to form. I also treated to top of the dough with a very light coat of olive oil in the same way, no puddles. I wrapped the top of the tray with cellophane to keep it from drying out and let it rest at room temperature. Two hours later I came back and stretched the dough gently into the corners of the pan. I could see that it had risen and bubble were forming in the crust. I used care not to flatten or press on the dough, but rather stretch it by gently pulling on it. Two more hours later, the dough had risen just above the tray top and almost completely filled the corners. I pulled very slightly toward the corners and set it aside.

The toppings are very expensive for this pie. I spared no expense this time, but will begin to experiment with slightly less expensive toppings for future trials. It gets topped with mozzarella and Parmesan, whole tomatoes, garlic, rappi (rappini), oregano, basil, salt and pepper.

First up was the roasted garlic and rappi. I roasted this myself while the dough was rising. Simply peel the cloves (I used 1-1/2 small cloves) and place them in aluminum foil with chopped rappi (about 2 TBL). Then place the wrapped ball in the oven at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes until the garlic becomes tender.

I used 1/2 lb fresh (U.S.) mozzarella for one half and a 1/2 lb ball of smoked mozzarella for the other side of the pie. The cheese goes down first, sliced thickly in about 1/4 inch slices. I left about a 1 inch gap between slices for melting.

Once the cheese in in place, I sprinkled the pie with Oregano, salt and pepper. Next I spread about 1/2 cup fresh chopped basil liberally over the cheese.

Up next were the tomatoes. I purchased Cento brand San Marzano tomatoes in cans. The cans were $3.99 each and I used 1 and 1/2 cans (youch). It hurt to spend that much on toms, but they are San Marzanos, after all. I did my best to hand squeeze most of the water out of the tomatoes before slightly crushing them and laying them onto the pizza. I like lots of tomato, so I covered most of the top leaving about 1 inch gaps between tomatoes.

Lastly before baking, I smashed the garlic and rappi and spread it over the pizza as well. I’ll need a better way to spread garlic as doing it by hand was a messy and inefficient affair. Once done, the pie was ready to bake.

I had raised the temperature to its max for my home oven - 550 degrees. This requires caution when using oil and a cookie sheet on the bottom rack as the oil gets close to it’s burn point very quickly. The idea is for the oil to lightly fry the bottom of the crust. If you begin to see smoke, the oil is burning and you might have to lower the temperature. I baked it for just about 10 minutes and it had just began smoking at that time.

When the pizza comes out it will look and smell amazing! However, stop to finish it with 1/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese for a little extra texture and flavor.

I noticed immediately the difference that less oil had made this time. Combined with the wetter dough and longer rise time it made for a wonderfully light airy, yet robust crust. I could almost imagine it being healthy for me! The other observation worth noting was that, for me, the fresh mozzarella tasted better than the smoked cheese for this pie. It seemed to have a tang that complimented the tomato perfectly while the smoked cheese was more subtle and seemed to blend in rather than stand out as a distinct flavor. This pizza seems to explode in your mouth and it’s a truly wonderful experience especially right out of the oven. This is one that you can use to impress even the most snobby of your pizza friends because the taste is classy and timeless. I highly recommend this recipe despite it’s higher cost.

Next up - I’ll try to get the cost down by using other tomatoes and shopping around for fresh cheese. Enjoy!