PIZZA DOUGH RECIPE DEFINITIONS autolyse; a period of rest after water, yeast and flour are combined (no salt) allowing the dough to hydrate and gain strength. This process allows the gluten and starches to align and helps eliminate the need for kneading. sourdough starter; a leaven made from equal parts flour & water that takes on wild yeasts present in the air, flour & bakers hands. poolish; a combination of equal parts flour & water with a small amount of commercial yeast added. bakers percentage; a bakers notation method when referring to ingredients relative to flour. Flour in the recipe standing for 100% of the equation. Abbreviated as BP in this book. Tools; Mandoline/Benriner, bowls, kitchen aid mixer with dough hook, a good knife, scale in grams, insta-read thermometer, laser thermometer, metal pastry cutter, spray bottle/can of oil, dough card. STARTING & MAINTAINING A SOURDOUGH STARTER This takes some time and commitment, maybe more than you want to commit to have the occasional pizza night. However- getting a culture going takes only a few days and once established it s easy and an invaluable tool for baking bread & making pizza. The starter is made up of water and flour, and various bacteria thrive in this combination. A good basic home starter is made up of the following; 100 grams 85 degree water, 50 grams whole wheat flour, 50
grams white flour, 10 grams sourdough starter. The starter should be fed once a day around the same time by discarding 90% of it (or baking with it) and refreshing with the above proportions. Depending on the temperature of your room and strength of your starter it should be ready to leaven dough in 3-6 hours after feeding. It should show bubbly activity, rise in the container and float when dropped in water. POOLISH WITH ACTIVE DRY YEAST AKA EMERGENCY DOUGH MAKER A Poolish is a good alternative to sourdough that requires no commitment and still creates a flavorful dough that s great for pizza. A basic poolish is made up of the following; 100 grams whole wheat flour, 100 grams white flour, 200 grams 80 degree water & a pinch of commercial yeast. Should be ready to leaven dough when the mixture rises in the container and floats when dropped in water, about 2 hours after mixing. A WORD ON DOUGH & FLOUR. Dough can be a simple but tricky thing and involves a lot of intuition to get it right. So many factors can change a recipe; weather, humidity, different flours.. It can be frustrating! The main adjustment we make at the restaurant is hydration. Our flours are milled in flour lots and identified with numbers that indicate the milling date, growing site & even the id# of the person who milled the flour. Everytime we change flour lots it takes us a couple of days to iron out the new hydration for the dough. I always try to buy large quantities of the same lot number so we can deal with adjusting as little as possible. Still, changes in weather can affect the dough too. Rain can make the dough feel sticky and tacky, dry weather can of course mean increasing the hydration to compensate. Dough that too dry is much worse than dough that is too wet. You can always add a little flour when balling the dough up to make wet dough easier
to deal with, but when dough is too dry it proofs unevenly, doesn t ball up nicely, and it can be fragile when you try to stretch it. You want a nice elasticity in pizza dough. The hydration i give in this book is a good starting place, but may need to be adjusted depending on the flour you use for your pizza and weather in your area. Flour choice is personal. I like to use organic flour that is sourced as local to me as possible. At Lovely s we incorporate about 35% local whole wheat flour into our dough. I like to change this seasonally too. We use 65% white organic flour grown in Utah & Iowa from Central Milling and this balance is a good compromise in obtaining a good dough that is toothsome, crunchy and flavorful. DOUGH RECIPE- Makes four 400ish gram dough balls 675g of water (85 degrees) 73% BP (adjust as needed) 75g of starter or poolish 8% BP 745g white flour 180g whole wheat flour. 100% BP add after autolyse; 23 g salt + 23 g water 2.5% BP Mix dough by adding ingredients in order as listed above leaving out the last measurement of water and salt. You can mix by hand until combined which is tricky since this dough is fairly dry, or use a kitchen aid mixer fitted with dough hook for 4 minutes or until thoroughly combined. Give the dough an Autolyse for 30 minutes and then add the mixed salt and water and mix thoroughly. It s ok if the dough breaks all apart and gets crazy looking. It will come back together. Now you will develop the dough using the stretch and fold method. DOUGH DEVELOPMENT- STRETCH AND FOLD 30 minutes after mixing the salt into the dough you can do the first fold. You can keep the dough in the mixing bowl or transfer to a new oiled container with a lid for this process. Do this by dipping your hand in water and grabbing the bottom of the
dough and folding it over the top. Do this 3 times to constitute 1 turn. Repeat this about 4 times total, over about 2 hours at warm room temperature. At the end of the process the dough should gain 10-20% in mass and move easily as a cohesive piece. BULK vs. BALL FERMENTATION When the dough is developed you have the following choices; 1. Divide the dough into 4 even pieces, ball it up and refrigerate overnight. This will make it easy to pull out the next day and use, but in my experience it adds more acidity to the end product. Let the balls proof at room temp for about 1 hour before you make pizza. 2. Give the dough an overnight bulk fermentation by leaving in the same container you developed it in, wrapping the top tightly and storing it in the fridge. Pull the dough out in the morning and let it come to room temperature, about 2 hours. Unwrap, divide into 4 even pieces and ball up. Let rise 2-6 hours, dough should be relaxed and easy to stretch. BALLING THE DOUGH Balling or shaping pizza dough can look daunting but all you are really doing is creating tension in the dough ball and sealing up the bottom so when you stretch it out it doesn t have weak spots that create holes in the pizza. I ball up about 120 balls a day and it's a time for me to asses the dough I'm using for the night: the smell, feel and volume give me a clue of proofing times for the evening. You can google this and watch 1,000 videos on youtube, there are a million different ways to ball pizza dough. In the end, you just need it to work for you. Here is my method; divide dough into equal pieces. If the dough is soft and pliable you can start balling it up. If not- let it rest for a bit until you can feel a buoyancy in it when you pick it up. I lay my dough out on a cutting board flat, cover the top with flour and divide it, careful not to get flour on the underside of the piece. Pick up the dough with both hands and wrap your fingers around the back of the piece. Start moving the back of the dough into the middle
letting your thumbs help you gain smooth tension on the top. When you get a nice smooth top, flip the top into the palm of your hand and grab the tail with the outside of your hand along your pinky. Start pinching the tail closed with the same motion you would use to milk a cow. When the ball is closed up place it tension side up, tail down on a lightly oiled surface to let it rise. I like to use an upside down cambro container, oiling the lid then covering with the container itself. STRETCHING PIZZA When the dough balls have risen and relaxed in their container. Usually about 3 hours but as much as 9, you can dust them with flour and pick them up with a dough card. Dust a pizza peel or the back of the baking sheet with flour, stretch out your dough as follows; pick up the ball and pinch a generous crust all along the outside while letting gravity pull as you hold the skin vertically while pinching. The pizza will start stretching out to its actual size with this first step. Take special care not to make the middle too thin, you want an equal thickness throughout the middle of the pizza, with the pinched part of the crust being about twice as thick. Then use the back of your hands to stretch it a little bigger by gently moving them away from each other and running them under the skin. Flip it and lay the skin onto the floured peel/sheet right side up. Gently pull the edges to a size and shape you like if the first stretch didn t totally do it. The 400 gram ball should make a 11 or 12 pizza. TOPPING THE PIZZA Pizza toppings can vary widely. I use what I like. A little meat, a lot of cheese and vegetables and sauce sometimes. Topping pizzas with a few different cheeses makes for good flavor and texture. I lay down toppings in the following order; Sauce or not, a layer of good aged grated mozzarella, vegetables tossed with salt, olive oil & reggiano, another few layers of cheese- this can be something more flavorful than mozzarella that
complements your other toppings. For White pies I like juicy cheeses like fromage blanc, fontina, gouda, etc. For red pies drier cheese like sharp provolone are better because sauce adds moisture and too much of that can make the pizza soggy. BAKING THE PIZZA You can use a gas or electric oven very effectively when you outfit it with a ceramic pizza stone, baking steel or even an upside down baking sheet. My personal preference is the Baking Steel, I actually have two; one on the bottom rack of the oven to cook the underskirt of the pie, and one on the top rack of the oven to uniformly cook the top of the pizza. Position an oven rack in the lowest slot in your oven, place the sheet/stone/steel on the rack and preheat at your ovens highest setting for 45 minutes. If you want to use another heat conductor for the top of the pie, do this now. After the preheat check the temperature of deck with your thermal thermometer. You are looking for a temp of about 650 degrees. After the preheat is done slide the prepared pizza onto the deck. You will want to rotate the pizza once to get even color on the crust. The first pizza might be a little too dark on the bottom but the surface cools off fast and subsequent pies will be lighter. You can use a frying pan or extra piece of dough to take the heat off the deck if you want. The Pizza will take 5-10 minutes to cook depending on your oven and how many pizzas you ve cooked.