December 16, 2014 - 11:04am
How to make a dough like this?
Hi,
I saw this video and it seems unreal:
How can you stretch the dough like that and it wouldn't be ripped? Can it be done using basic ingredients available at home or do they use something else? Is it related to gluten maybe? Though I doubt it has much gluten as in my experience it darkens the dough color, right?
Thanks alot.
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Yes, it's possible, in particular if it was done by the world champion pizza maker! He does amazing things with the dough.
I would guess that there is at least some high-gluten flour in there, plus a just right dough hydration, a lot of dough development, and a lot of practice.
I find the particular arm movements he uses interesting because it's less like what I see for pizza handling and more like what I see for Middle Eastern breads, like this Lebanese woman making saj (blog post - video about a third of the way down on the page), or this Turkish man making yufka - which is particularly interesting because yufka is usually made more like this or this, which is pretty much how gozleme is made, too.
Curious about your comment about gluten darkening the color - do you mean of the dough or the final product? It could contribute to crust color since the Maillard reaction (cross-linking of proteins) is part of what gives baked dough it's golden brown color, although caramelization is a part of that, too - as is how it is baked.
Thanks guys. Yeah I meant the dough seems to look darker Like if I use 0 grams in 400g flour bread vs 100g where the dough is darker/brownish. It looks much more pale when it's only white flour. This is what I noticed.
Is it possible to obtain a similar dough recipe though? Are these secret or hidden?
I'm a little confused by the second sentence. "0 grams in 400g flour bread vs 100g" What does the 0g and 100g refer to? Is that 0g or 100g of bread flour in all-purpose (which is what I'm guessing the 400g refers to)?
I find your observation interesting since I've never noticed flours with a higher gluten content adding color to a dough. Unbleached flours or flours with a higher bran/germ content, yes.
I've never tried to make a dough like that, so I can't recommend something off the top of my head. A good starting place would be sites and books devoted to pizza making - Peter Reinhart's American Pie book might be a good jumping off point - there are several dough recipes there. He also maintains a blog dedicated to discovering great pizza still, I think - a quick search should turn it up.
As I said before, though, some of it is the dough, and some of it is skill with handling.
Sorry I meant 0 gram gluten and 100g gluten in addition to regular flour. It seems to make the dough look darker IMO.
Have you ever heard of the windowpane test? It is how a lot of bakers test the dough for gluten development when kneading. You take a small piece of dough between your fingers and stretch it so thin, you can see well enough to read through it without tearing. This man probably used a high gluten flour and kneaded it until it was able to be stretched like that.
Thanks. No I never heard that term before. So in this case it's high gluten flour and kneading the dough very long? Where can I find high gluten flour? Or is it a term for using AP flour and adding gluten? Otherwise I only have AP flour at my grocery store.
Also when you said he kneaded it until it was able to stretch like that, how long would that be? I assume a machine can do it for you too, right?
Cheers.
You knead the dough until it can pass the windowpane test. ;-) People have lots of definitions for high gluten flour. What I mean is a specific type of flour that has even more gluten than bread flour. Depending on where you live, you may be able to order it online and have it shipped to you, if nobody carries it locally. Even bread flour has more gluten content than AP flour and is very helpful in making bread as well as pizza. But, you can get AP to work just fine if you knead it more. A machine can knead the dough a lot more effectively than you or I can, as long as it is strong enough. You can use the search box at the upper right of this page to find information about flours and gluten content as well as gluten development and the windowpane test.
Great fough and honed skills make the seeming impossible.... real enough to eat. A thin cruspy Pizza like that is hard to come by.
Thanks alot guys, appreciate your help :)