Tuesday Pizza Night - Crust 3 Ways with 25% Whole Grains
We never have pizza night on a Tuesday so it seemed like the perfect time to have one. We wanted to test out a new multi-grain pizza dough made 3 ways - Yeast water, Sourdough and a YW / SD combo starter to see which one we liked the best. My wife played her part as taste tester with me this time since my apprentice never gets pizza of any kind for taste testing as she wolfs it down - faster than a shark.
This was a new formula of ingredients that included corn meal, Chi Ch flour, whole wheat, oat flour, whole soft white wheat, instant potato flakes and AP. It turned out not to be our favorite crust. It was good but not our favorite.
Our commercial yeasted version of Focaccia Romana remains our favorite pizza dough even though we no longer stock commercial yeast at home. We continue to search for as good a replacement crust using natural yeast as we can find or develop and will not stop till we do. It’s more fun searching and looking than having sometimes.
In this case we tried 3 versions of the same dough by making one sourdough, one yeast water and one a combination of the two. We did this by building the single stage levains separately over 6 hours and splitting the autolysed flours after 3 hours. Half the dough was mixed with the rye and Desem SD seed and AP levain and the other half mixed with the yeast water and AP levain.
Once the first 4 minutes of French slap and folds were complete for the 2 variations, 1/3 of each was taken from each and combined to make the 3rd combo YW / SD levain. Then 4 more minutes of slap and folds were completed for all 3 variations followed by a 30 minute rest in an oiled bowl.
Then 3 sets of stretch and folds were done on 30 minute intervals. Once the final S & F was done the dough was refrigerated at 37 F in an oiled, plastic covered bowl and allowed to ferment and develop in the cold for 18 hours. An hour and half before being made into pizzas, we pulled the dough out of the fridge and allowed it to come to room temperature and relax.
The SD version had risen the most in the fridge, more than doubling, the SD / YW combo was 2nd with a double and YW was 3rd with not quite a double being held at first base. So with a triple, double and a single at World Series time we spread each out by hand to between 1/16’ and 1/8”thick since we like out pizzas as thin and crispy as possible.
Each was topped with some combination of home made; sauce and sausage, store bought pepperoni, yellow and red peppers, caramelized; onions and mushrooms, fresh basil, mozzarella and Parmesan. Even though we cut up some black olives we forgot to get them out of the fridge some now we have olives for tonight’s salad. I did sneak some goat cheese on one pizza while my apprentice and wife weren’t looking.
We always put a little minced, sun dried tomato, rosemary and garlic in the crust and par bake it for 3 - 4 minutes at 500F, on a stone - once it is formed, docked and brushed with Mojo de Ajo.
All 3 baked up equally well, nicely browned; on the bottom, the edges and cheese. Each was thin, crispy and would not bend when sliced no matter how heavily topped. This isn’t your soggy, wimpy, foldable, bendable 3 times too thick crust pizza that New Yorkers think is real pizza to die for. Each crust edge puffed up nicely, with large holes too. The soft white wheat and the garbanzo bean flour made the dough really nice to spread by hand and get really thin without tearing.
My wife said they all tasted the same which is why she won’t be taste testing anything else any time soon. But for me they all tasted different. All were very good but different. The SD was the best followed by the SD /YW combo with YW bringing up the rear – no question about it. Now we have to covert our favorite Focaccia Romana formula to SD and see if it can be as good as the original.
Formula
Multi-grain Pizza Dough - Taste Tested Twice and 3 Ways Too |
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Desem Starter | Build 1 | % |
SD Desem & Rye Sour | 15 | 2.26% |
AP | 60 | 11.43% |
Water | 55 | 10.48% |
Total Starter | 130 | 24.76% |
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YW Starter | Build 1 | % |
Yeast Water | 60 | 11.43% |
AP | 70 | 13.33% |
Total | 130 | 24.76% |
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Starter Totals |
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Hydration | 89.09% |
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Levain % of Total | 22.15% |
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Dough Flour |
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Whole Wheat | 25 | 4.76% |
Bread Flour | 50 | 9.52% |
Chi Chi | 25 | 4.76% |
Soft WWW | 100 | 19.05% |
Insant Potato Flakes | 10 | 1.90% |
Oat Flour | 15 | 2.86% |
AP | 300 | 57.14% |
Corn Meal | 25 | 4.76% |
Dough Flour | 525 | 100.00% |
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Salt | 10 | 1.90% |
Water | 354 | 67.43% |
Dough Hydration | 67.43% |
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Total Flour | 662.5 |
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Water | 476.5 |
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T. Dough Hydration | 71.92% |
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Whole Grain % | 25.28% |
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Hydration w/ Adds | 71.92% |
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Total Weight | 1,174 |
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Add - Ins |
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Olive Oil | 25 | 4.76% |
Total | 25 | 4.76% |
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1 T Sun Dried Tomato |
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1 tsp of Dried Rosemary - use 1 T if fresh | ||
1 T Caramelized onion. |
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1 Clove Minced Garlic |
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Comments
Great experiment DA. They all look and sound fantastic especially since I have not eaten yet and now think I have to go get some wimpy NY pizza :).
I actually prefer the thin crust like you have made myself, but a nice NY style pizza is pretty good too!
Glad you left out the olives...my wife loves olives and I despise them, hate them, can't stanz them!
Look forward to your next pizza experiment.
Bake on!
Ian
NY style pizza crust myself but my wife hates olives and loves it really thin so at home we do it thin since I don't want to die before it's time! We had some NY style slices at Froggies on University with some brewskies before the Wildcat football game last Saturday in Tucson. They were just great and I thought for sure my wife would let me make a thicker crust on Tuesday but NNNOOOOOOOO!!!!. I threw the soggy, wimpy, bendable, etc. in for your consumption only :-) Next experiment will be the Focaccia Romana with SD only.
Made a nice simple 15% whole grain SFSD today for the dentist who called to re-chedule my last appointment for tomorrow. It really came out nice. Will post it tomorrow if I don't get whacked too bad by him. I'm trying to develop a SFSD like I remember and loved so much when I lived there. It is sort along the lines that David Snyder did only not nearly as well done or as good a baking by a long shot :-)
unless of course the thin crust has holes and toppings that look like this! And a perfect Arizona sky to blend it all together. Last week I set up the topping station and most everyone stepped up to the challenge and topped their own. This resulted in medium thickness pizzas towering under lots of cheese etc. For me, the best is the NY style crust lightly topped but everyone enjoyed their personal pizza creations, and isn'tthat what it is all about anyway. My apprentice completely forgets her table manners when confronting a pizza. It is as if all her favorite things are combined in one dish. Only butter is missing. She was properly indulged by one of the grandsons who cut a slice into bites for her enjoyment.
until our daughter is home from from college and inviting her friends and or sorority sisters or we have guests with requests! We always have a topping station for them to make their own pizzas and we put 2 peeps on a pie to feed more folks faster. They never complain about their own pies for some reason and my apprentice always compliment them on their successful creations :-) I do the baking but, for them to get their pizza in the oven, they have to agree to give me a slice of their pizza, that way I get to eat with everyone too. It is always one of the most enjoyable evenings for all concerned. Your right, it is what it is all about and the way it supposed to be .
I always get caught feeding my apprentice things she isn't supposed to get. You would think I was a criminal or something the way my girls get after me for it. No grand kids yet but I could use some help, or more likely cover, sooner rather than later!