Durum berries and making pizza dough?
Hey all, sorry for the drive-by post as I come here sporadically. Basically, I got my bread dough where I want it and since I just keep making the same bread over and over again, it's not interesting to come tell you about it :)
But, I am wanting to dabble into a new area. Since the pandemic, getting berries or flour became difficult, so I sourced some and got a TON to mill with my mockmill 200 (which I love, btw). BUT... Now how to make pizza dough with said durum berries? I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as just grinding the berries and making a dough. Do I need to sift out the bran? Has anyone done it?
And since I have 50lbs of Durum wheat - I am also open to some knockdown delicious bread made with it (my bread are always at least 50% whole grain).
....but, while you are waiting, add it to your bread formula. Durum wheat adds a great color and nutty flavor to my bread, and I use it at 5-10% of the total flour every time I bake. For pizza, it could depend on what kind of pizza you make. Plenty of formulas out there for whole wheat doughs, I'd just give it a whirl with some reasonable percentage, unsifted and see how it goes. Try sifting it after that if you feel it needs adjustment.
I use semolina flour (from durum) in my pasta dough, and have just gotten 5lbs of durum berries to use for just that. I don't know if I'll need to sift, so I'll start without and see if I like the texture then add sifting if I think it needs it.
I do 2/3 AP, 1/3 semolina with 54% hydration for my pasta dough. The hydration comes from egg (primarily), and then I make up any difference needed to get to 54% with olive oil. I find that 85-90g of flour is pretty good to serve one person with some leftovers.
Not sure if that helped at all, but it's something! :)
Rich
Thanks! I'm actually really excited to start adding some durum wheat to things!
Hiya! My go-to pizza dough calls for 10% durum flour. I also have a Mockmill and durum berries, so when it comes time to make the dough, I grind the berries and add it whole to the mix, without sifting. I do run the freshly ground flour through the mill a second time usually, to get it as fine as possible. It adds wonderful flavor and texture to the dough. I've also used it in bread dough. You could add some to focaccia too. With all those berries, sounds like you will be having some tasty experimenting! Happy Baking!
Here's a link to a tasty bread recipe using 33% semolina/durum (there's a lot of blah, blah...just scroll down to the end to get to the recipe): http://luvnspoonfuls.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-no-knead-bread.html#more
Thanks so much! I'll check it out!
I've made pizza crust with store-bought high-extraction durum flour (either whole grain, or almost whole grain, never got a "definitive" answer.) And I like it. It was true flour, not gritty semolina.
I've never milled durum berries, but I have milled Kamut, which is a close cousin to durum. My milling process makes a coarse grind.
durum is extra hard. harder than hard red or hard white wheat. They call it "glassy" or "vitreous". (Kamut is glassy/vitreous too. ) When you mill it, or cut open a grain, you'll see.
So if there is any coarseness in the grind, you have to soak it extra. Without a good soak, it will feel like "wet sand" until it fully hydrates. It you blend it with white flour for bread or pizza, soak/autolyse the durum separately than the white flour, otherwise the white flour gets the water first, and the durum will take too long to hydrate.
Whether you need to sift, or dilute with white flour depends on your family's tolerance for whole grains in pizza crust. Start at maybe 25% and slowly increase, and see when they start complaining. ;-)
You're right about durum: it's great for flatbreads. It's widely used in the Middle East and India. Good for tortillas.
Bon appétit.
This is excellent advice and makes complete sense and thank you! We are way used to whole grains. My bread is either 100% whole grain or at least 50%. For pizza, I've done 50/50 with bread flour and white flour/semolina mix. It doesn't give the same "bite" when using whole grain, even at 50%, but it's good, just different. I'll give it a go.
Lemme know what blend (durum plus white flour) that your family likes best. not only percentage-wise, but which white flour: AP, Bread (12% pro), KA Bread (12.5% pro), or high gluten (13+%).
If home milled durum is like home milled Kamut, you can't see the bran like you do with red wheat, since the bran and the endosperm are both yellow.
In other words, Kamaut (and maybe durum) is like white wheat berries, in that it is easier to "hide" the whole grain, since the bran stands out less, at least visually.
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I think restaurants and pizzerias should promote durum and hard white wheat, as healthier alternatives. Hard Red wheat flour, especially over 50%, just doesn't seem to make good flatbreads.
I have used hard white mostly, but then I couldn't find any (darn pandemic) and so I finally found red. We'll see.
As far as what blend? Well, for the pizzas I've made so far, bread flour (I have All-Trumps high protein bread flour that works well - and I could FIND it. AP flour is just "ok. I've used store-bought semolina for pizza too and that works great, but I'm hoping to move away from that for home and grinding my own. I have used this recipe so far and it's OK.
WHAT YOU’LL NEED:
3/4 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp. fast-acting yeast (1 package)
1 tsp. granulated sugar
1 1/3 cups bread flour
2/3 cups semolina flour
3/4 teaspoon table salt
3 tbsp. olive oil
cornmeal, for sprinkling on pizza pan
Thanks for that formula!
You likely know, but just in case you didn't (I didn't know at first), store-bought semolina is always refined, as in branless and germless, it's just the endosperm.
So when you use home-milled durum, you can grind it finer than gritty #1 semolina, but it will have the bran and germ, and therefore will ferment and bake differently, and have a different "chew."
I've got a sourdough pizza crust recipe if you are interested, that uses some home-milled durum. I grind it fine and never have to soak it, but my recipe does call for a 24-48 cool bulk ferment, so maybe that takes care of any bran issues. It makes a soft, flexible dough that you can stretch very thin, but still has those nice, puffy bubbles on the edge of the crust. Let me know if you would like it!
Yea. Please post here in a comment, and make a blog entry for it.
Here goes! I'll make a blog post with photos next time I cook these:
500 g bread flour (or a combination of 300 bread flour/200 tipo 00 flour)
50 g freshly ground durum flour, not sifted but ground fine
200 g AP sourdough starter (recently feed and at its peak)
325 g bottled spring water
50 g olive oil
12 g salt
pinch of active dry yeast (I'm loving the organic Red Star yeast at the moment)
Evening Mix: In a large bowl, dilute the starter with the water, then add the flours and the rest of the ingredients. Mix together, by hand, until no dry flour remains; rub any clumps of oil out between the fingers. Let rest for 30-60 minutes, then perform a series of 3 stretch and folds every 30 minutes, then allow a short bulk ferment until the dough has risen approximately 50%-75%. Cover the bowl and store in the fridge for 24-48 hours (I think the dough is best at 48 hours).
Approximately 2 hours before you want to make pizza and 24-48 hours after mixing: Remove the bowl from the fridge and scrape the dough out onto a floured surface, divide into six equal pieces (approximately 200 g each), and shape into small boules. Place the shaped rounds on a floured cookie sheet, dust the tops with flour, then cover ( towel or plastic wrap), and let proof for approximately 1.5-2 hours. About an hour into the proof, pre-heat your pizza stone (either oven or grill).
To shape, take a proofed dough round out of the pan and flip over onto a floured surface. Press with floured fingers, starting in the center, working your way out towards the edge while rotating the round. Slowly and carefully lift the expanded round by the edge and allow the dough to stretch down while moving the hands around the edge, being careful not to tear the dough. Place the dough on a durum dusted peel, cutting board or back of a cookie sheet and top with ingredients of choice. I brush the dough first with some garlic olive oil as I've read a thin layer of oil stops the sauce from penetrating the crust and making it soft. Cook for approximately 7 minutes (for a pizza stone heated to 550-600 degrees). Watch carefully, cool then enjoy!
I sometimes double this recipe and make calzones with the left-over dough balls. They keep really well in the fridge and re-heat nicely during the week. I usually make the dough on a Thursday evening for a Saturday night bake. We found an enameled pizza stone that works great on our gas grill, so this has pretty much become an every other weekend ritual for us.
Please keep us informed of your pizza, milling, and outdoor baking adventures.
Any 100% home-milled pizza dough yet?