What are you Baking the Week of April 3, 2022?

[Mike Nolan]

I'm getting close to needing to make bread again.

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[RiversideLen]

I made a batch of my sandwich buns but withheld 2 buns worth of dough to make a pizza. So, for dinner I had pizza with roasted bell pepper, mushrooms, onion and sausage.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've been experimenting with pizza. It was too soggy for me, especially the center of the pizza and especially with veggies or sausage or pepperoni.

First, I modified the crust and subbed out some of the pastry flour for bread flour. This made the dough more elastic but it was still soggy in the center. The amount of whole wheat/flax/white flour is the same I've just increased the gluten.

So I par-baked the crust for about a minute. But that created the Boboli problem (do Bobolis still exist?). Everything just sorted of floated on top of an already cooked crust and did not mesh well. It did not taste the same but it did eliminate the dreaded "soggy bottom" problem.

Then I par-baked and docked the crust. This was much closer to my unbaked crusts in flavor and much crisper.

I par-bake on parchment but then after I top the crust I just go right from the peel to stone. I was putting a bunch of flour on the peel which stayed on the crust AND made a mess in the oven. So then I tried lightly dusting the bottom of the crust before I topped it and leaving a small edge hanging of the end of the peel. That fixed the flour problem.

I have at least a couple more things. I want to dock BEFORE I bake to see if it makes a difference. Also, talking to some tavern pizza makers they bake on a pan I forgot to ask if it was hot or cold when they put the dough on it but if it is hot I will have to top the dough then slide it on to a hot pan. Some oil on the pan may crisp it up too. In college we sprayed pans with oil then baked the pizzas most of the way in the pan and took it out at the end for a few minutes on the deck to crisp up. But these were more like cake pans and the pizza was more like Greek style.

I have a few different recipes too so I may play around with those but I do not want to change too many things at once.

No pizza making for a while as we'll be out of town and then it will be Passover.

I also made matzah at Sunday School yesterday. We had pre-K through 6th grade come in and mix, roll, and dock dough. The entire process of making matzah, from adding the water to the flour to finishing the bake is supposed to be 18 minutes or less to prevent any rising. We also slid the matzah on to pans that had been heating in the oven. It was a little daunting until I realized it's not really too different from using a stone.

[Mike Nolan]

When I was living in Chicago, a lot of the pizzerias would do pizzas on a perforated pan. Do you have one you could try?

We haven't done pizzas at home for a while, but at some point I want to resume my explorations of thin-crust pizza dough recipes. I also want to get a pizza steel, but they're not cheap or light.

[RiversideLen]

I use a pizza stone, which I preheat for about an hour at 500 degrees. I roll out the crust in between 2 sheets of parchment, lightly oiled (it makes a difference). I reduce the oven temp to 450 or 475 before putting in the pizza, I use a peel and slide the pizza with the bottom piece of parchment, I set a timer for 3 minutes and then gently slide the peel just a little under the pizza and use a gloved hand to slide off the parchment. This might sound involved but it's not. The pizza continues to bake directly on the stone with no dusting flour or cornmeal. It will not stick to the stone at this point. If I'm using mushrooms I always sauté them first to remove the excess water (there is plenty in mushrooms) and concentrate the flavor (even with canned mushrooms). I always pre cook the sausage to reduce the grease and excess moisture.

Aaron, to reduce the Boboli effect, reduce the yeast, by a lot. The reduced yeast works but it needs more time, so make the dough early in the day or earlier.

[cwcdesign]

Aaron. We love using the Baking Steel - I just sent one to Will for his birthday as he moved to Dallas on Saturday. I like the pizza dough recipe from Baking Steel, but Will has been making a sourdough dough which is really good. He seems to have nailed his process and the dough is in the thinner side which I like. The last time, he tried baking for one minute and then putting the toppings on - it really worked- he doesn’t overload the toppings. Also, with the baking steel you bake on the top rack for a very short period of time.

[cwcdesign]

Joan, I posted the recipe. Chicken Juniper aka Elegant Chicken.

[Mike Nolan]

Boboli and other pre-baked crusts are still on the market, but the only time I've ever used a pre-baked crust was when I bought a gluten-free crust. Wasn't impressed by it, but it was better than nothing, I guess.

I do make lavash pizzas, though, but they aren't in the oven all that long, nor is it set as high as I would set it for pizza.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks for posting the recipe Cwcdesign.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks everyone. I've toyed with the idea of a baking steel and it might work if I made one pizza a night. With Sam in school I am down to five regular pizzas and a mini pizza for Violet. There is usually some leftover for lunch the next day.

When we had two working ovens I could go between them and keep one hotter and one cooler. Now with one oven I can only set the temp. I set it to about 500 and preheat for about 90 minutes (sometimes longer). I usually start in the middle shelf to set the pizza then move it to the top shelf to finish it and brown the cheese. I am using the bottom shelf for par-baking but I could finish that before I start making pizzas but that makes the whole process take longer.

I want to keep my dough high in whole grains because we do this almost every week. I used to use all whole wheat flour but Kate didn't like the result.

One last thing. I am roasting the vegetables to reduce the water in them. I could pre-cook the sausage but I am trying to get back to my South Side roots.

[Mike Nolan]

There's an interesting thread in the BBGA forum about using L-cysteine as a dough relaxer. The poster uses it for croissants, but it'd work for pizzas as well. He mixes some of the L-cysteine powder in with flour then uses a small amount of that flour to get the recommended amount of L-cysteine. (20 ppm, or thereabouts.)

[Joan Simpson]

Only baking for me was a peach cobbler.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks Mike. I'll have to read the paper. The thread is interesting and certainly took a path the poster never intended.

BTW, the person who started the thread grew up three houses down from me in Chicago. We discovered this on a pizza thread.

[Mike Nolan]

Pineapple juice as a dough relaxer was a new idea I got from that thread, that came from the Modernist Pizza folks. I'm trying to convince myself whether I need any of the Modernist series, unless I win the lottery, probably not. But I would like to know more about the Brazilian thin crust that is one of the various styles of pizza they describe. When you search online for 'Brazilian pizza', all you find is about various toppings.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm making another batch of semolina bread today.

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