Anything Pizza

Gave my first run at Detroit style pizza. Pretty tasteful and was fun trying something new. Cold proofed for about 30 hours.

 

What does cold proofed mean? It looks good, quite a bit different than a conventional pizza.

 

You get the yeast working and make dough then put it in fridge to proof for whatever time the recipe calls for

 

Ok. One of these days I need to make a pizza from scratch like that.

 

I’d recommend if you do a cold proof allow the dough to sit to get to room temp before you start cooking with it. And yes unconventional from my normal thin crust brick style pizza too

 

A couple of Sourdough pizzas from last night. I made seven for nine people.

 

That crust looks delicious!

 

Thanks! It's a combination of 65% Caputo Pizzeria flour and 35% Caputo Nuvola Super. 48-hour cold fermentation. It was very easy to stretch without tearing. And yes, it was delicious!

 

I just finished making dough for Detroit style pizza tonight. Obviously I'm not cold proofing it, just using bread flour instead of regular bleached.

 

So question for you.

I am assuming the flour choice made it easy to stretch?
Or the long/cold ferment?

I don't have sourdough starter but would like to sort out what I can do to stretch my dough more/better/whatever.

 

Fillipies Resturant in Scripps Ranch makes damn good pizza. Prime rib too. Old school bar with plenty of big screen tv's.

 

OK, first thing, not having enough starter is very easy to correct. Just add equal amounts, by weight, of water and flour to your existing starter, stir it up, leave in a warm place and you'll have a lot more starter.

The flour combination is not really anything special. Bread flour or specially formulated pizza flours can all be stretched satisfactorily.

For dough to have good extensibility (the tendency to hold its shape during stretching), the gluten has to be developed through either a) machine mixing, or b) hand kneading or c) extended fermentation or d) any combination of the preceding three methods.

So to answer your question more directly, mix or knead the dough thoroughly. That is what develops the gluten and will ultimately determine the dough's extensibility. When the gluten is properly developed, it will be very stretchy when you gently pull a small piece off the main dough mass. If the piece you pull snaps and breaks off, the gluten is underdeveloped. Let the dough rest 10 minutes and knead or mix another 5-10 minutes. A long 24-48 hour cold fermentation will further develop the gluten and develop deep flavor as well.

On baking day, remove the dough from the fridge 4 or 5 hours before you intend to make pizza. Form the dough balls, cover to prevent them from drying out, and leave them to rise and come up to room temperature. The dough balls will be much easier to stretch at 65F or above.

This is a vast, fascinating subject, with endless variations on the steps I've outlined above.

 

Yesterday I used bread dough (store bought frozen) for a pizza. I now see the difference between that and pizza dough. It's not as easy to stretch, tends to split, so a thin pizza may be a challenge. Also, when done the crust was crisp, but not in the way a pizza is typically crisp. Certainly not bad at all, just different. Given a choice I'd use pizza dough.

 

Thanks for this reply!

I do use bread flour and I often let things cold ferment for a day or two.
I am probably not kneading it enough. Nor am I leaving it out of the fridge for quite as long [2-3hr instead of 4-5hr].
I'll have to give things a new try and see how these modifications come out.

 

Play by play photo dump. Double pepperoni Detroit style.

 

Cubed cheese - interesting!

 

It would take me a couple of days to pass all that cheese!

 

A couple of other things...are you familiar with the window pane test? That's a good test for extensibility. The dough should be stretchy and feel silky smooth. Also, bread flour can absorb a lot of water, so the more water, the better for extensibility. However, the higher the hydration, the stickier and more difficult to handle the dough becomes when stretching. So there's a trade-off there. 64% hydration (64 grams of water to 100 grams of flour) would make an easy-to-handle yet adequately hydrated dough.

 

I was kind of skeptical but it turned out great!

Haha

 

That is some good information!!

I am using a 58% hydration recipe right now + 3.3% EVOO [IDK if the EVOO has any effect]
More kneading and a bit more water

I have found that the cold fermentation = dough easier to handle
I have also gotten a bit better at handling sticky doughs