I go through a lot of flour as I go along on my journey to find the perfect pizza recipe! In fact, as I stood in line to buy my third 50-lb bag of Hi-Gluten flour from the baker’s supply shop, it became almost amusing to consider.

The number that is at the top of the site will go up each time I make a post about a pizza that I make myself. I am not counting the actual pounds of flour as I go, but rather I have developed a formula for estimating my usage. The formula is as follows:

Flour Used (lbs) = # of “Pizza Making” posts * Average # of Pizzas per post * Average lbs Flour per pizza

I’ve calculated that my average number of pizzas per post is about 1.1. Each pizza recipe uses an average of 3 cups of high gluten flour which weighs approximately 5 ounces per cup. There are 16 ounces in a pound.

Therefore I use apporoximately 1.03125 pounds of flour each time I post a “Pizza Making” article!

As of today (February 2005) I have used 2 full 50-lb bags of flour and put a dent in my third. I have wasted a few dough balls and given about 10 cups of flour away to friends. That means that my calculations are probably conservative!

Here’s to many, many more pounds of flour!!

Lately I’ve been feeling like the site was getting a bit sloppy, so I took a break to clean it up and give it a tighter feel. Now I can get back to posting about the pizza! Sorry for the break in the action…

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

If you’ve been reading past posts, you know that I am currently trying to perfect the air bubbles in the crust of my New York Style pizza dough recipe. After several failed attempts, I turned to my friends at Pizzamaking.com for some advice. The feedback I got was very useful. Most helpful was this forum posting in which a lengthy discussion and some great notions were developed and shared.

From this post and my experience, I have formed the following thesis:

1. Hydration, or the water amount with respect to the flour amount, controls the “dough density”: high percent water (65-70%) makes light, crisp dough.
2. A bench rest prior to baking produces more bubbles in the crust rim (assuming careful handling while stretching).

I learned a handful of other things that I want to change as well. For example, everyone seemed to note a difference in the type of container used for retarding as well as the benefit of leaving the lid off for the first hour of retarding. Also, a wild variance in yeast percentage does not have a tremendous impact on small batches of dough allowed to retard for 24 hours. Finally, only minimal kneading is required when mixing pizza dough and there may be a negative effect from over kneading.

In order to prove my thesis, I set out to create a test in which I could obtain a crust similar to those of my friends. For starters, I decided to keep the recipe the same and only vary my dough handling. For this pizza, I would make the following changes to my technique:

1. Start with cooler water to end with a final dough temperature of about 85 degrees.
2. Only mix the dough until the ingredients come together into a smooth ball (about 8 minutes)
3. After balling, I would leave the lid off of my dough container for about an hour then seal it for the remaining 23 hours in the refrigerator.
4. Allow a one-hour bench rest prior to baking and minimally handle the dough while sheeting.

In general, I was able to stick with my plan. I used 70 degree water which results in 79 degree final dough temp. The dough did not rise much in the refrigerator. When I removed it, it was somewhat soft. I placed it in a bowl of flour, covered, for one hour. When I began to shape it, the extensibility was noticeable as was the difference in the size of the ball. Bubbles were visible just below the skin of the ball. In fact, I had to be very careful removing it from the bowl and shaping it so not to disturb the rim shape.

The pie was topped with more of the plum tomato Neapolitan sauce, cheese and pepperoni then baked at 480 degrees for 9 minutes.

After baking, I felt a sense of accomplishment! The crust rim was not as bread-like as before. There were still no large voids, but they were bigger than previous attempts. I assume this is from the bench rest.

Another notable difference was the light, airy feel to the slice and bite. It was a bit more crisp than before. I attribute this to the water content. Overall, I would call this the best yet New York Style for me. The flavor was wonderful. The slice shelf was a bit flimsy, but that has to do more with the fact that I’ve been stretching a smaller dough ball out to fill my 16 inch screen.

Though the voids were improved, I’m still not seeing the large open spaces that I want. I think I will try again with an even longer bench rest to see if that makes a difference. In the mean time, I’m getting some great experience and tasty pizza!

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

My father’s favorite pizza is thin and crispy with loads of pepperoni. As he was visiting us this weekend, I decided to make a thin crust pizza in his honor. For a while I had wanted to try a recipe from Pizzamaking.com which looked very similar to the Pizza Hut thin crust pizza recipe.

Here are the ingredients I used in the dough:

16 oz hi gluten flour
3/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

As this dough mixed, I became worried that it looked too dry. In fact, the dough was crumbling and forming small shards of dry dough inside of the breadmaker. I allowed it to go for about ten minutes before taking it out in an attempt to salvage the dough ball. I kneaded it by hand, trying to shape it, but there was no hope. The dough ball was quite dry and lumpy barely able to be balled and placed in the bowl for retarding.

Not confident at all about the look of the dough, I decided to make another batch with slightly more water and oil.

The following is the thin crust pizza dough recipe that I used for the second batch:

16 oz hi gluten flour
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Both balls were allowed to retard in the refrigerator for 24 hours. When I removed them there was no improvement to the first batch of dough. It still looked quite dry and lumpy. The second ball, however was quite nice and very extensible. Despite the looks of the first dough ball, I decided to try stretching it. This proved to be a futile attempt as the surface of the dough was dry and very tough. The second ball, however, proved to be quite pleasant to roll with a rolling pin. I was able to roll the dough out to create a 16 inch pizza.

The second hitch that I ran into was the lack of a cutter pizza pan. These pans have a sharp edge which cuts the dough as you roll it leaving a clean round pizza crust blank. The closest I had was a metal pan which I normally use for a serving tray. This pan served well for cutting the dough. It also appeared to work well for baking. However, when the toppings were browned and I used the peel to remove the pie, I noticed that the bottom had not browned at all and that the pizza had stuck to the pan!

I an attempt to salvage the pie, I carefully scraped it off of the pan and transferred it onto my screen. I baked the pie for a few more minutes, allowing the bottom to brown sufficiently.

After all of this, the pizza, topped with leftover blended plum tomato neapolitan sauce, pepperoni and mushrooms, was ready for eating! In fact, it tasted very good. The texture of the crust was very appealing. It could hold its form (not droopy) but had a bit of a chewy bite to it. Overall we really enjoyed this flavor.

I learned a few hard lessons while making this dough. Firstly, I have to go back and double-check the recipe on pizzamaking.com to see why my first batch just wouldn’t combine at all. There must be some explanation for the difficulty I had.

Secondly, I have decided that I can’t use a pizza pan and no pizza stone. I think that the metal simply couldn’t transfer enough heat to bake the bottom of the crust. I also think I will be purchasing a cutter pan before I return to this recipe which may also help.

I have not given up on this recipe! It was quite good and I’m sure will only get better as I learn the way of the thin. Stay tuned, more to come…

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

Now having had several failed attempts, I have decided to try another attempt at getting light airy crust with large voids in the rim. This time, I have varied the final dough temperature hoping that a longer yeast activity period would result in more air bubbles in the final crust.

I used 90 degree water in the modified Lehmann New York Style crust recipe that I have been using for my tests, rather than the normal 70 degree water.

The dough was mixed and balled, allowed to bench rise for about an hour, then placed in the refrigerator for 24 hours. When removed, the blank was stretched onto a 16 inch pizza screen and topped with my plum-tomato based neapolitan sauce, cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms. The pizza baked at 480 degrees for 9 minutes.

After examining the crust, I have decided that water temp did not affect the rim. It was still delicious, but dense and bread-like. I will have to continue my quest another day!

Here are the pics…