The Fresh Loaf

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Three Levain Friday Night Pizza Night - With a Surpise Ending

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Three Levain Friday Night Pizza Night - With a Surpise Ending

It being summer in AZ, we are baking our pizzas on the gas grill outside.  We prefer the big old GE inside for pizzas but the gas grill does a half decent job with the pizza stone heated up.  One plus is that the gas grill can get to 650 F and the crust is super crispy, even though the top may not be browned enough.

 

See through pepperoni can go under the cheese adn still bake up well trapping that fat next to the sauce.

This dough had been in the fridge for 48 hours and was nice to work with and was tough but pliable when stretching over the knuckles.  The leaven for this was repeat of a three-peat - a pinch of yeast biga, yeast water, sourdough starter and flour – the same one used earlier this week for that fine crust on Lucy’s Fruit Stupid; a peach and plum and Nutella galette.

 

The girls split their pizza #1, each making half to their liking.

One thing we did different this time is to liberally dust the counter and the top of the dough with semolina when forming and to use whole wheat pastry flour for 25% of the flour mixed with AP and bread flour.  Semolina just sounds like Italy to me and it takes the tackiness out of the dough just as well as flour does when forming.

 

Pizza #2 was everything included for one low price that was flipped over after par baking.

 My shaping of these pies was a little fast which produced an odd shape but I could tell the monsoon was going to blow in right as the first pie was to go on the grill.  Poor Lucy had the be Jesus scared out of her with all the wind. lightening, thunder and rain.  Since she usually forms the pies and was beside herself, I tried my best. 

 

The poor grill was struggling to  keep the heat in so on the 2nd pie instead of par baking for 3 minutes and then taking it off and loading it up, we par baked it for 2 minutes, took it off and then flipped it over and loaded up the once stone side down with the toppings.

 

For this pie we didn’t brush Mojo de Ajo on the top until it had been par baked and flipped.  The first pie had Mojo de Ajo brushed on top before it went on the stone for par baking.  We did not put our normal rosemary, garlic and sun dried tomatoes in the dough this time.

 

The bottom was perfectly browned even after being flipped - very crispy and tasty.

The toppings were the usual home made sauce, mozzarella, parmesan and romano, red, jalapeno and poblamo peppers, green and caramelized onions, carmelized , king oyster, crimini and shiitake mushrooms, hot Italian sausage, grilled squash, steamed broccoli and pepperoni.  I put a little aged super sharp cheddar on mine too.

 

My pie was the 2md one and the crust was stupendously crispy and tasty.  It took 6 minutes after it went back on the stone after the par bake and loading it up.  It wasn’t the best looking pizza because it was flipped but it tasted fantastic.  I might start flipping them all the time even when made indoors.

Saturday morning’s breakfast was a home made English muffin with butter and caramelized medium Minneola marmalade, hot breakfast sausage, half a peach, half a mango, a slice of cantaloupe chopped up  and an omelet with hot pepper jack cheese.

 

The fruits and melon were all at their very best ripeness and made for a nice consolation after a stormy sunset that turned into some thing quite unexpected and beautiful.

 

How strange that this ugly storm….

 

turned into this Western facing sunset of orange rain coming down…… but looking East at the same time was a double rainbow.

 

Formula

Pinch of ADY plus

Build 1

Build 2

Total

%

Multigrain SD Starter

10

 

10

2.67%

AP

45

25

70

18.67%

Water

0

25

25

6.67%

Yeast Water

45

 

45

12.00%

Total

100

50

150

28.00%

 

 

 

 

 

Multigrain SD Levain

 

%

 

 

Flour

75

20.00%

 

 

Water

75

20.00%

 

 

Hydration

100.00%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Levain % of Total

150

23.08%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dough Flour

 

%

 

 

AP

250

66.67%

 

 

Whole Wheat Bread Flour

50

13.33%

 

 

Dough Flour

300

80.00%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt

7

1.87%

 

 

Water

200

53.33%

 

 

Dough Hydration

66.67%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total Flour

375

100.00%

 

 

Water

275

73.33%

 

 

T. Dough Hydration

73.33%

 

 

 

% Whole Grain Flour

14.67%

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hydration w/ Adds

73.33%

 

 

 

Total Weight

667

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Add - Ins

 

%

 

 

Honey

0

0.00%

 

 

Butter

0

0.00%

 

 

Toadies

0

0.00%

 

 

Dehydrated onion

0

0.00%

 

 

Ground Sesame 2 & Flax seeds 2

0

0.00%

 

 

Parmesan & Romano 10 g each

0

0.00%

 

 

Red Malt

0

0.00%

 

 

White Malt

0

0.00%

 

 

Total

10

2.67%

 

 

 

Comments

Sjadad's picture
Sjadad

dabrownman - beautiful pizzas and beautiful skies!  If I could have ever achieved results like yours on my gas grill I may not have gotten a wfo :)

Sjadad

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

one fo those excellent pizza extenders that he uses for his Webber Kettle Grill. He makes some fine pizzas on it too.  I would love to have a WFO to make real artisan breads but have a difficult time trying to justify the cost of construction, even if home built, plus and the very high cost of wood in AZ - all for the occasional pizza and one loaf of bread a week.  Talk about expensive bread......

Glad you liked the pizza and beautiful skies - they were amazing and

happy baking.

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Yum!  Those look great DA.   I can't wait to make some pizza when I return home and want to try the Ken Forkish recipe.

Glad you got it baked before the storm hit and gave you soggy pizza.

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

patio canopy so no soggy problems.  Very strange colors of this storm though.  After seeing the posts recently on KF's pizza crust.  We will have to give it a go if I ever make liquid white starter - not problem if the holidays and we are making panettone - plenty of wasted spent fuel with that :-)

Arr you making challah for Rosh Hashanah?

 

Isand66's picture
Isand66

I'll be leaving for China on Tuesday so no time for Challah.

SylviaH's picture
SylviaH

Oh my it's lunch time here and I've only had an orange.  Your grilled pizza's are amazingly delicious looking.  I can just see you and little Lucy out there flame'n up things, with wind, thunder and rain a brewing.  That kind of weather just makes you hungrier.

Aaaahhhhh.....a bottom crust photo.....yeah!  When I don't see the bottom crust shot of a pizza.  I feel really down, like when I don't get to see a crumb shot of bread.  The pizza just doesn't count without a good bottom color and yours looks delicious.  It's not easy to achieve what you do for your pizza's on a grill.

Your sausage breakfast looks so good!  

The photo's are amazing.  We also get double rainbow's in my valley....so gorgeous.  One time a rainbow's end came right down in my neighbor's back yard...at least it sure looked like it.  One of the things I miss most are the desert storms and the that special smell.  

 I could go for some pizza...it's so darn hot and humid here right now...pizza's good anything!  Hey, I just remembered 'seriously' I took a dough ball out of the freezer yesterday : )  Now, what to make for dinner is mostly solved.

Thanks for sharing all, DA : )  Very nicely done!

Sylvia

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Lucy was looking for the evil wee Fairies while I was trying to catch me a leprechauns!  With two rainbows, no telling how much gold he was a hoarding.  Sneaky little devils they be - and the leprechauns are worse :-)  Desert storms can be weird but that one went from nasty to gorgeous in a flash.  Orange rain was also a first for me.  I thought for sure purple haze would be next if the Fairies and their way with us.  Fiendish they are!  We like a well browned bottom of crusts around here  too. These slices stayed crispy too and they tasted great.  I guess we will do KF's pizza dough next just to see how it compares.  Maybe the girls will like it better. 

Since it rained last night it is hot and humid here too.  Feels like Miami or Houston, instead of hell, since it only got to 100 F or so today :-)  Those Irish Fairies took of flying and only got about 3 feet in the air  before they turned into little puffs of smoke in mid air. They were vaporized in the AZ monsoon afternoon.

When I tell people the desert smells best right after a rainstorm, they just laugh at me but you know what i am talking about. 

Glad you like the food Sylvia,  It looks like you have that famous red hair that the Irish are so famous for and inherited from the Vikings!

Happy baking  

Wingnut's picture
Wingnut

You don't do Simple do you DB? I am becoming of the ilk three toppings at best on my pizza. Good for you fearless baker that you are.

Cheers,

Wingnut

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

around her Ski!  Simple is just too difficult for poor Lucy :-)  The three character attributes one must avoid at all costs in life are Fear, Pride and Ego... if you want to be successful.   We are having all kinds of baking fun around here lately and some of the baked goods are turning out half decent in spite of Lucy:-)

Frank :Loyd Wright said that, 'The only time less is more is when there is no more'.... he is ;Lucy's favorite Architect of all time as a result.

Hope your paddling weekend turns out to be a fine one - it's you last chance of the season.

Happy baking Ski

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

Have levain happily waiting for mixing up tomorrow's pizza. Who needs hot dogs when you can have a picnic with beautiful pizza? Your pictures of the storm are just beautiful, as are the pizzas of course. Looks like a golden lining to that storm cloud. Lucy outdid herself with that day's baking and then probably couldn't enjoy her fame with all that weather crackling around her, poor thing.

Wonder if it was FLW who said that Doctors bury their mistakes and Architects plant vines?

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Who said  A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.  There were many other instances of doctors burying their mistakes and some other profession doing something else with theirs.  Poor Lucy is afraid of her own shadow so a thunder storm makes her skin crawl and hair stand out straight :-)

Your picnic sounds great but it is still too hot here except for pool parties!  You girls have been baking up a storm these past two weeks and all of it very nice too!

Happy pizza baking Barbra

PS,  I was wondering where the word picnic came from adn from Answers the answer is:

  The word picnic is derived from the French word "pique nique" to describe an outdoor meal. The earliest versions of picnics come from the Middle Ages when members of the upper class would "dine out" during a hunt. The first record of the word "pique nique" comes from the 1692 edition of Origines de la Langue Française de Ménage.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of "picnic" in English appears in 1748 in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son residing in Berlin, in the sense of a social gathering. 'Picknicken' in German means to hold a meeting. A subsequent mention occurs in a letter from Lady M. Coke to Lady Stafford in 1763. A 1738 translation of Lord Chesterfield's letter into Swedish used "picnick" and the Swedish dictionary suggests it is of French or English origin. By the early 1800s "picnic" was used only in the sense of a social meal eaten outdoors.
It has nothing to do with slavery. That is an urban legend.
dmsnyder's picture
dmsnyder

Now I know where the expression "over the top(ping)" came from! Extraordinary pizzas there!

Frank Lloyd Wright may not have had fear, pride and ego, but he also didn't have false modesty.  My favorite story, which I heard told by Dr. Julius Richmond, former Surgeon General of the United States and the founder of Project Headstart, is that Wright was once called as an expert witness in an architectural malpractice trial. After being sworn in, he was asked to state his name and occupation. He stated, "My name is Frank Lloyd Wright. I am the world's greatest architect." The judge was quite astonished and blurted out, "You certainly are not modest!" To which Wright is said to have replied, "Actually, I am quite modest usually, but today I am under oath."

David

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

He was tremendously talented and gifted as a designer.  He had no fear but pride and ego were his strong suits and, as a result, he never was as successful an Architect as he should or would have been. He was quite the renegade,outcast and eventual cult figure so financing was difficult for him.  He was stylish and loved his Cord automobile.  His bouts with clients over money adn design are legendary.  Frank designed the furniture for his magnificent Prairie Houses. He would spend considerable time to place this furniture exactly and ony where he thought they should go.  Then he nailed them down so they couldn'tt be moved by the owners even if they wanted to :-)  He eventually stopped this insane practice.

One of my very favorite FLW sayings was his reply on how he could tell a good Architect from a bad one.  He said that you can always tell a good Architect if his roof doesn't leak,  Frank was notoriously known for the fact that he never designed a roof that did't leak, sometimes horribly.  I guess he figured the roof wasn't his after he turned it over to his client.  Like most great Architects Frank's best work never got built and for Frank that was most of his output.

bakingbadly's picture
bakingbadly

One word: Delicious.

I've yet to explore the realms of pizza baking, let alone with sourdough, but your photos are tempting me. 

Happy baking,

Zita

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

made a pizza Zita!   It's like never having eaten Thai Green Seafood Curry, a hamburger with fries or fried chicken or Tikka Masala  or piles smoked meats on rye    The wonderful thing about pizza is that you can make really great ones with just 3 or 4 simple toppings that are easy to make and some of the best ones are vegan.

You will have a culinary blast making them - but I warn you, they are addictive.  Opening a pizza joint in Cambodia would likely be a huge success as it is everywhere else. 

Glad you liked these 'pile them high' versions  and

Happy baking Zita

Song Of The Baker's picture
Song Of The Baker

Nice pizza dabrowny...I will be showing my father my pizza making process tomorrow for dinner.  This post will give me that extra little push of motivation to make them extra good.  I love the bottom crust you got on these...perfecto.

You loaded the bejesus out of the pizza too...gotta love that.  Especially when it doesn't cost an extra $5 per topping.

I can only hope to experience a lightening storm when down there.

John

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

We like the supreme versions of home made pizza since we make most all the meat toppings and few can afford one otherwise.   That just makes the crust about the most imported thing with loaded pizzas - not that it isn't with other pizzas too.  It has to be tasty, strong, thin and crispy to hold up to all that extra weight and the grill is really the best for doing that because of the higher temps available to the home baker - if you don't have a WFO.

You come to AZ when there isn't much chance of any clouds, much less rain .  But, if it does storm in May...you know the end is near :-)

Next time we do pizza on the grill I'[m going to not par bake them and see how that goes since the fire should hot enough to bake a pie the normal way and not have the crust soggy on top.

Happy pizza baking John

wassisname's picture
wassisname

I think I'm full just from seeing the photos of your pizza night, dabrownman!  Great stuff!

Marcus

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

pieces for the freezer, 3 from my flipped pie and 2 from the girls pizza.  We just couldn't stop eating it we left the table pretty full to say the least. 

Glad you like the pizza Marcus.  Love your Polenta bread and that Big OL' Rye was stupendous

Happy baking