DOUGHS DOUGHS DOUGHS

Throughout this challenge I came across alternate ways of making pizza dough using interesting raitos, methodologies or ingredients. Since I usually just made a cheese pizza with each of them (a nice baseline that lets me judge solely on the crust) I don’t think they need their own post, but I’m going to touch on them here and provide some notes

Rye/Wheat Pizza dough (Nancy Silverton)
This pizza dough was getting a lot of hype online and I was curious what the addition of rye flour would do for a pizza dough. So I tracked down her recipe and gave it a shot. The methodology was simple – it used a sponge (or biga) to preferment and the folding technique. The rest of the steps were easy enough to follow. The resulting pizza was tasty and definitely had an earthier flavor than I was used to which was kinda of nice. I think the issue I has was the recipe I was using was adapted for home ovens, and I cooked them at 900 in my outdoor pizza oven so they dried out a bit. I think I’d like to give this a go again but use the high heat formulas

No knead cast iron pizza
No kneading? No complex formulas to create a delicious pan pizza? Sign me up -I’ve got a cast iron pan and some time so lets go! There’s a bunch of versions of this out there but the most referenced one is here . It really couldn’t be simpler: Mix the ingredients then cover and wait. That’s it. Once the dough has risen put it in the pans, then rise again until they’re puffy. Sauce, cheese and fire on a baking stone or steel. The resulting crust was open and airy and crispy from the oil used and the cheese at the edges got crispy. Overall this was a really good pizza, and super easy.

“72+” Pizza (extreme fermentation)

I’m usually a 24-48 hour pizza fermenting guy – 36 hours is usually the sweet spot where the yeast has put in the work and the flavor and rise is where it needs to be for an amazing pizza. I found a pizza formula for 72 hours and decided to make three dough balls and make them at 72, 96, and 120 hours. It obviously used very little yeast and relied on time to make it happen. The dough at 72 was super easy to open and felt a bit delicate so I was careful to top and bake quickly. The dough definitely had a nice flavor and cooked up crisp. The 96 was a bit more delicate and I had to use a a bit more bench flour to ensure I didn’t rip the dough when opening it and it cooked up a bit flat – I suspect the yeast was starting to give out. The 120 was a problem as it felt like it would tear if I looked at it funny – so I setup the pie on parchment paper and shaped it gently into a square shape as opening it didn’t seem possible. What came out of the oven wasn’t that great it didn’t have a great bite and was almost a flatbread. I suspect if I wanted to ferment that long I’d need to change the yeast ratios to account for it as the original formula was only for 72.

Thin Crust (Bar Pie)
Who doesn’t love a cracker thin crust? Crispy yet tender this bar pie style pizza is super easy to shape as you roll it out with a rolling pin (so much easier with an industrial roller, but all I have is the pin, so..) parbake it to ensure the sauce doesn’t make it soggy then top and throw back in the oven. Charred edges, crispy crust lots of ‘ronis and you’ve got a good Friday night. This goes really good with an ice cold beer which makes sense!

Sourdough Pizza
What to do with all this sourdough discard I was creating in making a sourdough starter? The very first thing that came to mind was making sourdough pizza of course. I did some research and found a few common methodologies and the one that made sense was to use the discard with some fresh yeast to refresh the rising ability a bit. It was also useful in that I could make it in the morning and have pizza at night since the starter delivered most of the flavor elements a long rise in the fridge would give it. The first attempt wasn’t that great, I think the starter was a bit weak so I fed that bad boy a bit more frequently and the next time the dough rose much better and the pizza had a great sourdough flavor note. I suspect I’ll be using this a lot as I go through my sourdough phase.

Tortilla Pizza / Naan Pizza
Is this cheating? Probably but I wanted pizza and didn’t have dough available. What I did have was a bunch of flour tortillas in the pantry. So I looked online and I found a viral video of tortilla pizzas and decided that sure this could work. Dear readers – it did not. If you aren’t a pizza person and just want a hit of sauce and cheese then sure, this could work for you. I suspect that one of the issues can be that I had ‘extra soft and fluffy’ tortillas because that’s what my kids like. If I used standard thin tortillas maybe it would have been a different experience?

Building on this, I also has some garlic naan leftover and said – well what if I throw sauce and cheese on this? The first try was a disaster as naan is designed to absorb liquid and that’s what it did turning into a soggy mess. Try #2 was me putting down a solid layer of cheese first then saucing it and that one was actually pretty good.

Bear with me here – I know these are pizza hacks. They are no substitute for a real dough that is made with love but if my research showed me anything its that a lot of people are doing this and who am I to judge their pizza happiness? One of my favorite memories as a kid is making hot pockets (back before they actually existed) by buttering two slices of bread and filling it with sauce and cheese and using that old school sandwich press. If doing these hacks makes people want to learn how to make their own pizza, isn’t that a good thing?

That’s what it all comes down to. Pizza is happiness – you make whatever pizza makes you happy. Except pineapple pizza. Stop it.