Home style pizza

[Matthew Strongin]

I saw this and immediately thought you all should see it.



xkcd: Lunch

[jumphigher]

^Sounds ok to me. ;)

[Too Tall]

It is official. The new range makes kick @ss pizza.
Ingrediants: mushrooms, garlic infused evo used to wilt swiss chard chopped, pesto for the smear, fresh mozzerella, paper thin sliced tomatoes ontop the pesto.

Oven at 500f for 10 on an steel plate. Result was sublime.
image.jpg

[rwsaunders]

When we are in the pizza making mode with the grille, it always seems like I'm making pizza for 6+ people and my sole round tray is my limiting factor in terms of PMOE (Pizza Making Optimal Efficiency). Quoth the Raven..."Nevermore", as three 14" diameter made in the US aluminum pizza trays (with lip) arrived today. Watch out Papa John and Peyton.

[rwsaunders]

All right. We were having a little birthday party here today and Mrs. RW requested a few pizzas for appetizers. Roasted tomatoes, olive oil, pizza seasoning and mozzarella cheese...topped with arugula, salt and pepper and left to settle. Perhaps number one on my pizza hit list. All charcoal grilled on the Weber of course.

[donevwil]

Made a real winner last night (confirmed by the Mrs.):

Sweet pepper tapenade as the base, Applegate pepperoni, lightly sautéed homegrown red onion, Poblano and Padron peppers, sliced olives, shredded Vacherin cheese and topped with homegrown cherry tomatoes.

pizza1.jpg

[dgaddis]

Pizza on the Egg again last night, our 2nd attempt.

The BBQ Hawaiian was awesome last time, so we did it again. Left over pulled pork, pineapple, sharp cheddar cheese, homemade BBQ sauce on top. Yummy.



Veggie. Butternut squash, mushrooms, broccoli, onion, and bell pepper. Cooked at a higher temp, cooked faster and the crust was a bit crispy, pretty much perfect.

[guido]

Crimini mushrooms, garlic, prosciutto, firm style mozzarella and a whole wheat crust. Much happier on a stone in the gas oven.

[Mark Walberg]

Crimini mushrooms, garlic, prosciutto, firm style mozzarella and a whole wheat crust. Much happier on a stone in the gas oven.

Wow, this is a beautiful pizza. Ours look a lot like this. This one makes me hungry even though I just finished dinner !

[Tom]

I need to get me one of those big giant curved pizza knives that look basically like a scimitar. The big wheel cutter still displaces toppings too much. I'm happy to see pictures of a non-round pie because every time I stretch one I complain I just can't get it round. Karen says it doesn't affect the flavor and eats it all up anyway.

[rwsaunders]

^ On my Christmas wish list.

American Metalcraft PPK17 18" Pizza Knife w/ Double Handle, Stainless

[Too Tall]

#notathreadjack
This is us trying to figure out how to make great 100% whole wheat pizza dough. Thanks for throwing down with me. Ultimately, this may be something that does not need to be done but I love the chewiness of WW dough and the challenge to make it well.
My suspicion is that the quality of the WW flour and gluten development are key.
Basic good food science for pizza here: The Pizza Lab: On Flour Types, Foams, and Dough | Serious Eats
I'm going to grab a bag of Bob's (normal) Whole Wheat pastry flour and a bag of K.Arthur White Whole Wheat and make a very basic recipe pizza dough and see what that does...to be continued.

[ericpmoss]

[...] 100% whole wheat pizza dough.[...]

Whole Wheat Pastry flour is a good start IMO because the bran is powdered and thus doesn't cut the gluten strands nearly as much. Even if it doesn't work out, it makes great (!) bread bowls for chili.

[Noteddy]

Sounds like a great place to start. Hydration will matter. Too little or too much H2O will inhibit gluten formation. The challenge with ww pastry flour is that it may be lower in the very protein needed to create gluten. But, I like the way you are thinking. I'd guess it will be possible to over knead too. If the sharp bits cut the gluten strands, then letting gluten form with time instead of kneading might help.

Some other science-based thought on the subject:

http://www.cookingscienceguy.com/pag...ing-Gluten.pdf

Food Science: Understanding Gluten' s Role in Baking

As I recall, Cooks Illustrated experimented with sifting WW flour to remove some of the bigger offenders and found it did produce a better loaf, but ultimately wasn't worth the time. Also, is it really whole wheat if you remove some of the bran?

Pretty sure with TT at the helm, I'd be willing to eat even the failed experiments.

[ericpmoss]

Other articles indicate that TT is best off with the white wheat flour he mentioned. I have it in a book I'm too lazy to open that (IIRC) the typical French bread flour is in the same ballpark of protein as American AP flour. So *maybe* if one started with the highest protein wheat and milled it to the pastry flour consistency, it would still be in the ballpark of the French white flours. Another option is to do a coarse milling, sieve out the bran, mill the bran very fine, and make a poolish containing some of the white and all the bran so as to soften it.

[twowheels]

Josh, I usually make my whole wheat dough using 2 parts white pastry flour to one part whole wheat flour. It makes for a flavorful and chewy crust that is quite popular in these parts!

[guido]

More whole wheat crust research. The Peter Reinhart whole wheat pizza dough takes 2+ days. Serious commitment. First pass starts saturday...

[guido]

Soaker and Biga underway. Now we wait...

[guido]

Soaker and Biga combined with additional yeast, honey, salt and a bit more flour. Kneading complete, dough divided in half (another one tomorrow Yay!). Now it rests as the oven heats to 500 and the toppings are prepped...

[guido]

After an hour the toppings are done, the oven is sitting steadily at 500, it is time to roll out the dough and assemble. These steps are best performed to the Atta Boy track on the Goat Rodeo Sessions disc.



Reinhardt suggests using parchment instead of corn meal. It is removed after a couple minutes in the oven once things start to firm up. Mine shreaded a little bit but it is way better than burned corn meal.

9.5 minutes later.



Served with arugula with a home made salad.



So how did it go? It was a touch sweeter than I like, I think I put in a little too much honey. Pulling back on that or adding a bit more salt in the final mix might help. While the bottom looked great and the cheese was nicely browned it lacked a bit of crunch. I slightly undercooked the crimini mushrooms so they probably gave off a bit of moisture but I don't think that fully accounts for it.

I have another one to do tomorrow night, will probably go a different topping direction. Perhaps (Eeeek!) a bit of tomato sauce...

All in all in all an interesting experiment. Perfect? Not yet. If anyone wants a copy of the recipe let me know.