GPS (Great Pizza Search) #9 was another foray into homemade pizza. The dough making process started on July 9 with culminated in 2 pizzas made on July 10 and another two on July 11.
I decided to change up a couple of things for this dough versus previous doughs:
- Regular dough with yeast vs Sourdough – done for simplicity
- All Purpose Flour vs 00 Flour – done to lower cost
- Mix with a KitchenAid vs By hand – done for speed and more consistent mix
I consulted and compared 3 different “regular” dough recipes of interest:
- Scott Weiner of Scott’s Pizza Tours
- Kitchen Aid Dough Recipe
- Basic Neapolitan Dough
My result was a dough plan of 70% hydration, 1.4% olive oil, and 2% salt.
Once in the mixer, it seemed too dry, so I added about 1/3 cup of water. Then it seemed too wet! So, I added about another cup of flour!
The end result was 66% hydration, 1.2% olive oil, and 1.7% salt.
Working the dough after it was removed from KitchenAid was very easy and resulted in 4 good, “shiney” boules that were then placed in olive oil coated containers and then the refrigerator.
As mentioned above, the first pizzas were made with this dough on the following day, July 10 (Homemade #6 & #7).
In order to facilitate the use of the pizza stone that failed last week, we used cornmeal (in lieu of semolina) and additionally picked up a wooden pizza peel.
The “regular” dough was less wet and more workable than previous sourdoughs while the cornmeal made it more “slippery” on the wooden working surface.
The cornmeal further eased moving the dough onto the pizza peel, and then eventually off the peel into the oven
As for the sauce and cheese, I returned to Aunt Teresa’s recipe but removed the salt and pepper but then added a teaspoon of crushed red pepper. The cheese was a combination of buffalo moozerell and freshly grated Reggiano parmiagian.
Cooking for the first (Homemade #6) was at 500F on the pizza stone. We put the pizza immediately on the stone after the stove buzzed that it was at temperature. The cooking time was 10 minutes.
For the second (Homemade #7), I increased the oven to 550F. In addition, the stone had that much more time to come up to temperature. This pizza was in the oven for 8 minutes.
We added Salami (pepperoni in the USA!) to the second and fresh basil to both immediately upon removal from the oven.
The final result were 2 incredible, I SHOULD SAY GREAT PIZZAS!
The first was a little softer, and the second was soft with a little bit of crunch. The sauce was to die for!
We paired the pizza with a Cannonau di Sardegna which is outstanding with pizza.
We ate most of both pizzas with some leftover for the kids’ visit on July 11. I removed the cold pizza from the refrigerator from the previous day, and it was gone instantly! I guess the kids liked it!
So, I took the other two doughs out of the refrigerator for Homemade #8 & #9. Unfortunately, I let both doughs sit too long on the peel causing them to stick and become oblong on the pizza stone.
BUT, the taste was still incredible, and paired with my favorite 2011 FEUDI DI SAN GREGORIO TAURASI both vanished within the first hour even though we had a full other dinner planned!
You must be logged in to post a comment.