Yeast Water and Poolish Pizza
This pizza dough is made from cherry YW but after letting the YW levain made from 40 g each of YW and AP flour ferment for 4 hours a 2nd stage of 25 g each of AP flour and Water was added. After it had doubled in volume we put it in the fridge for 24 hours.
The dough really rose in thefridge during the retard. Right is the dough after deflating, just before dividing.
When we took it out the nest day to mix it with the AP dough flour and water we added a pinch of instant yeast to the mix. The dough flour was 240 g of AP and the water added was 145 g with 2% salt. This made the dough 69% hydration.
After 3 sets of slap and folds and 3 sets of stretch and folds all on 15 minute intervals we bulk retarded the dough for 24 hours. It easily doubled in the fridge. We took it out of the fridge 3 hours before ewe wanted to use it and immediately divided it in half in roughly 257 g pieces for two medium individual pies.
Pie 2.
Thus dough was very good to work with – extensible yet strong. Once the pies were hand formed we brushed on some sun dried tomato, rosemary and garlic infused olive oil and lightly covered the pie with some pizza sauce. Once the mozzarella went on then came the hot Italian sausage, red pepper, red onion and crimini mushrooms.
Looks better with fresh basil on it:-)
Then came the ricotta cheese that was fortified with pecorino Romano, an egg and s hefty amount of black pepper. The ricotta was lightly covered with some more mozzarella and pecorino before sliding it and the parchment paper onto the bottom stone into BOB’s (Big Old Betsy) 550 F preheated maw. These pizzas had fewer toppings and mire cheese than out usual.
The first pie was baked without convection fan for 10 minutes and the 2nd pie was baked with convection fan for 8 minutes. Both pies baked up about the same, not as bold as our usual though. Both were nice and thin and very tasty. The crust was very similar to our favorite poolish Focaccia Romana we like the best but the ricotta and lack of pepperoni made for a very different tasting pizza – we liked it and there was plenty left over for freezing.
And don't forget the salad that goes so well with any meal including pizza!
The other difference in the two was that the 2nd one was garnished with fresh basil. This was a big baking week for us with pizza on Wednesday, MG Rolls on Thursday and the version 3 of our MG 50% whole grain YW / Sourdough with Apricots, seeds and nuts, That has slightly different grains and amounts of levain.
We are hoping to notice a change in bread because the home milled flour portion was not aged for 3 weeks before using it. Week 2 was actually better than week one and we will see what week 3 looks like.