shakey's thin crust pizza dough part two

[elsegundo]

Shakey’s Thin Crust Dough

1.   Weigh 9 pounds water at 95 degrees and add to mixer bowl.
2.   Open bag of Shakey’s Thin Crust 25# bag and pour into bowl.
3.   Attach dough hook to mixer, raise bowl.
4.   Mix on speed #1 for 7 minutes.
5.   Remove dough from bowl and place in 2 tubs and cover.
6.   Punch dough down when doubled in size.
7.   Place covered tubs immediately in cooler.

Premix:
Enriched flour
Partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil
Sugar
Salt
Yeast
Less than 2 percent:
Ammonium sulfate
Calcium sulfate
Dextrose
Soybean oil

I hope this helps.

[fazzari]

I tried another experiment this weekend based on the information from Elsegundo.  I attempted to make a Shakey's type crust at home using the following recipe to make a 30 ounce dough

KA Bread flour     100%
sugar                    1.25
salt                      1.75
oil                        4
95 degree water    45
yeast                      .75
I know the particular measurements may not be exact, but they are close...probably except for the water which I increased just to make easier.
So, I added the water and oil to the bowl, added all the dry ingredients and mixed in my Kitchen AID for 7 minutes.  Let the dough rise at room temp for  1 hour 45 minutes.  Punched the dough down, wrapped up the bowl and refrigerated for 21 hours.  Took dough out for 2 hours to warm a bit, and then proceeded to roll out a single thin sheet.  I then folded this sheet into thirds and then into halves so I had a six layer piece of dough.  I then sheeted this dough out as thin as I could.  It was tough!!  I spent alot of my time letting the dough rest.  When I got to the point where I couldn't get it thinner...I just stopped and cut out 3 skins and refrigerated them for 4 hours.  I then took the skins out of the refrigerator, and took my rolling pin to them because they were entirely too thick.  When I was done..(and this was very easy), I had 8 inch skins weighing about 6.6 ounces.  I topped the skins and baked in a 580 degree deck.

I have to say, I really didn't hold much hope for these skins.....the sheets were so tough to roll out, that I thought the skins would be tough when cooked.....but much to my surprise, and to the delight of my brother, the pizzas were fantastic.  I don't think they were worth the work...but it does prove, these types of skins can be made at home .










       

[Pete-zza]

John,

You mentioned about the dough rising but I do not see any yeast in the dough formulation. Did you forget to list the yeast or were you trying for the original Shakey's dough that, as I understand it, did not contain yeast?

Thanks for your contribution on this and other pizza matters. It is always nice to have a professional working at the same level as those of us who are home pizza grunts.

Peter

[fazzari]

Peter
Thanks for catching the yeast ommission....I did have yeast and modified the original post.  Today, while I was rolling dough I had a thought for an experiment....I took a hunk of my own dough, which had sat for 1.5 hours, punched it down and refrigerated it, and tomorrow I will take it out and laminate it...this should replicate the Shakey's method pretty well...I'll then cook a couple pizzas side by side to see how noticable a difference it makes on a crust to laminate before you refrigerate or after.

John

[elsegundo]

Well that's a good start. For Shakey's you need shortening and yes it does make a difference. There is more sugar than salt. Also Shakey's uses ADY yeast which is why they use 95 degree water. 

There is one final biggest secret to come. But you do have most of the process. Part three will be a surprise.


BTW what does "fantastic" but not worth the work mean?  It's why we have this site. Oh well.

Keep on baking. 

[Mad_Ernie]

This was an experiment I tried based on elsegundo's first posting of the dough ingredients.  I did not have any ADY on hand so I used IDY.

Dough recipe was as follows:
To make one 14” pizza (used 15” to get 14” and 2% bowl residue):
Flour (KAAP) (100%):    244.58 g  |  8.63 oz | 0.54 lbs
Water (40%):                      97.83 g  |  3.45 oz | 0.22 lbs
Shortening (2.5%):               6.11 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.53 tsp | 0.51 tbsp
Sugar (2%):                       4.89 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.23 tsp | 0.41 tbsp
Salt (1%):                       2.45 g | 0.09 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.51 tsp | 0.17 tbsp
IDY (0.75%):                       1.83 g | 0.06 oz | 0 lbs | 0.49 tsp | 0.16 tbsp
Total (146.25%):            357.7 g | 12.62 oz | 0.79 lbs | TF = 0.0714

I let the dough rest and rise at room temperature for about 2.5 hours before putting it in an old bread bag and putting it in the refrigerator for 3 days. 

After 3 days, I took the dough out and let it sit at room temperature for about 3 hours before rolling it out.  I used a simply rolling pin technique, no layering as John as mentioned above.  It was quite stiff and hard to roll out.

Skin was dressed with some sauce I had already made that consisted of 2 parts Hunts tomato sauce, 1 part Bonta pizza sauce/paste, generic Italian seasoning, fennel seed, salt, and garlic powder.

Cheese was 70% Mozzarella, 15% sharp cheddar, 15% provolone.  Toppings were tomato, onion, and mushroom.

Cooked on a preheated soapstone pizza stone (ignore the screen you see in the photos) in a 500 degree oven.

Photos were taken on Tuesday, March 16th.  Second and third experiments to follow.

[Mad_Ernie]

My second experiment was based on the information elsegundo provided along with my experience in making a Round Table pizza clone from a recipe that Lydia provided in the forum using Quaker Oats Harina Preparada flour tortilla mix.  The dough recipe for this experiment, and my next one, was as follows:

Flour (100%):    456.61 g  |  16.11 oz | 1.01 lbs
Water (40%):    182.64 g  |  6.44 oz | 0.4 lbs
Shortening (1.8%): 8.22 g | 0.29 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.06 tsp | 0.69 tbsp
Sugar (1.5%):    6.85 g | 0.24 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.72 tsp | 0.57 tbsp
IDY (1%):    4.57 g | 0.16 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.52 tsp | 0.51 tbsp
Salt (.5%):    2.28 g | 0.08 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.48 tsp | 0.16 tbsp
Total (144.8%):   661.17 g | 23.32 oz | 1.46 lbs | TF = 0.07575
Single Ball:   330.58 g | 11.66 oz | 0.73 lbs
For the flour, 12 oz is regular flour (all-purpose) and 4 oz is Quaker Harina Preparada tortilla flour.

Quaker Oats Harina Preparada Ingredients:

ENRICHED BLEACHED FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), PALM OIL, SALT, LEAVENING (SODIUM ALUMINUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM BICARBONATE, MONOCALCIUM PHOSPHATE), CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, DOUGH CONDITIONER PRODUCT (WHEY, L-CYSTEINE MONOHYDROCHLORIDE), DEXTROSE, CALCIUM CARBONATE.

I added some additional shortening, sugar, and salt.  Why?  To me, it seemed like the right thing to do based on elsegundo's posted ingredients for the Shakey's pizza dough flour and the ingredients of the harina preparada.  How did I come up with those amounts?  I guessed.

This batch made 2 dough balls, which were initially treated the same way as the dough in my first experiment.  I took one dough ball out of the refrigerator after 3 days and left the other one in the fridge for experiment number 3.  This dough ball rolled out noticeably easier than the first one, no doubt due to the higher fat (shortening) content of the tortilla flour and the added shortening.

Sauce and cheese were the same as the first pizza.  Topping was only mushrooms.  Cooked on the same stone as the pizza in my first experiment.  Results below (again, ignore the screen).

[Mad_Ernie]

And a few more shots of experiment # 2.

[Mad_Ernie]

For experiment number 3 which I made on Saturday, March 20, I took the dough ball out of the refrigerator after 7 days and let sit at room temperature for about 6 hours.  As with the previous experiments, I did no punching down of the dough, nor did I try any layering technique - just rolled it out with a rolling pin.  Again, this dough ball rolled out better than my first experiment, and maybe a tad better than my second.

Again, no docking of the dough.  I used the same sauce as my previous experiments.  This time, spread the sauce all the way to the edges.
I added freshly grated parmesan to the cheeses over the top of the pizza, and for the mozzarella I used have skim milk mozz (Kraft) and half whole milk mozz (Polly-O).  Toppings were tomatos and crimini mushrooms.

Since I had a recent experience at a Shakey's, I had a much better memory reference for what the pizza tasted like.  This experiment came the closest to me in terms of taste.  As near as I could tell, the addition of the parmesan cheese made a difference.  I'm not sure if the extra 4 days in the refrigerator made a difference.  Something else I noticed in the taste of this pizza that made it closer to a real Shakey's pizza was taking the sauce all the way to the edge and having the crust become just slightly burnt.  That mix of the flavors, with the cheese, really seemed to strike a chord with my taste-buds.

I have to say although I would have been all accepting of the whole sheeter/layering technique as a key to duplicating this pizza, with this clone I don't think it would have made a difference.  One thing I do wish I had to work with is a better oven.  I tried the heating the soapstone on the upper rack for an hour first before moving it and placing the pizza on the stone, but I don't think it helped very much.  Five hundred degrees Fahrenheit is just not enough, in my opinion, and we had snow on the first day of Spring so I couldn't go outside and crank up my gas grill with my 2stone.

I plan to try some more experimenting and tweaking with both recipes as we await the final chapter of the Shakey's pizza clone saga, but overall I am very pleased.  I have since bought some ADY and will try using it next time, although I'm not expecting much difference. 

[fazzari]

I am here to report some good news and some bad news.  As some of you know I am a pizza professional..this is not to say that I know everything about pizza, simply that I make my living selling pizza.  Having said that, I am not ashamed to say that pizza consumes my life...techniques, ingredients, you name it, it's on my mind.  Having said that, I learned to roll dough 36 years ago, and I was taught to roll the dough after it had risen and was still warm.  I always knew that Shakey's let their dough sit in the walkin overnight before rolling, and I even attempted this method a couple times and was not that happy with the results.....but....I now know from reading Elsegundo's posts, that the proper procedure is to let the dough double, punch down and thenput the dough in the refrigerator.  So, it is this process..more than the specific dough ingredients which really interested me.  And so my experiment started....two days ago I took a hunk of risen cracker dough, refrigerated it overnight, took out the next day about 2 hours before sheeting and then proceeded to laminate it.  I cut out a few skins and refrigerated them until I used them the same night.  Here are a couple pics of the results.

[fazzari]

The pizza in the previous post is a delicious, tender, crisp piece of heaven.  The texture of it reminded me of the time I did a lamination experiment, and got up to 36 layers...it was almost a delicate texture if that means anything.  The bad news is that rolling this dough even on a heavy duty sheeter was very taxing to the machine...and this is why it was so damned hard to attempt it by rolling pin.

After thinking about it a bit...of course the dough is tougher to roll because it has had 24 hours to develop.  The pizza I rolled by hand a few days ago was delicous, but as I said at the time, it wasn't worth the effort.....what I meant by that statement is...it is possible to create a very similar texture and flavor at home by laminating the dough after it has risen and is warm.....believe me, it can be done if you are patient and give the dough plenty of time to rest.

Mad_Ernie, your pizzas are beautiful, I adore the looks of the bottoms especially.  My question to you is how long are you mixing your dough?  I guess my question is not that critical for you because you're not sheeting your dough until after it's refrigerated. 
John

[Mad_Ernie]

Mad_Ernie, your pizzas are beautiful, I adore the looks of the bottoms especially.  My question to you is how long are you mixing your dough?  I guess my question is not that critical for you because you're not sheeting your dough until after it's refrigerated. 
John

John:

Nice pizza pics, btw. 

Good question.  I mixed my dough both times using a Cuisinart food processor and the dough blade attachment.  I cannot say exactly how long, but I did give it plenty of mixing time to make sure the ingredients were well incorporated.  This was especially true for my experiment # 1 using the dough formula more closely related to elsegundo's list of ingredients in order from greatest to least.  The lack of moisture (and fat) compared to other doughs I normally make seemed to make this more necessary.  I know Lydia in her Round Table pizza dough clone recipe instructs to mix just long enough to get the ingredients mixed.  If I were to guess, I'd say I mixed the first dough ingredients for ~ 3 minutes, maybe slightly longer.  The second dough using the harina preparada flour mix took a little less time, maybe ~2.5 minutes.  Both doughs were left at room temperature for at least 2.5 hours, but I did not do any kneading or punching of the dough.  I just sort of poured the mixture into plastic bags and formed them into a cohesive, ball-like shape.

-ME

[lightmeter]

This was an experiment I tried based on elsegundo's first posting of the dough ingredients.  I did not have any ADY on hand so I used IDY.
Dough recipe was as follows:
To make one 14” pizza (used 15” to get 14” and 2% bowl residue):
Flour (KAAP) (100%):    244.58 g  |  8.63 oz | 0.54 lbs
Water (40%):                      97.83 g  |  3.45 oz | 0.22 lbs
Shortening (2.5%):               6.11 g | 0.22 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.53 tsp | 0.51 tbsp
Sugar (2%):                       4.89 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.23 tsp | 0.41 tbsp
Salt (1%):                       2.45 g | 0.09 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.51 tsp | 0.17 tbsp
IDY (0.75%):                       1.83 g | 0.06 oz | 0 lbs | 0.49 tsp | 0.16 tbsp
Total (146.25%):            357.7 g | 12.62 oz | 0.79 lbs | TF = 0.0714

Pardon my lack of familiarity on posting histories; particularly if this has all been covered before, I just haven’t wanted to entirely poison my Shakey’s recollections from other postings - not just yet. I’m trying to catch up now.

Is there a general consensus on a “best, most likely” Shakey’s dough recipe? If so, please repost chat or link for me.
Otherwise, I’ve chosen Mad_Ernie’s trial per above as a starting point. Using this, here’s a random exercise I undertook while celebrating President’s Day… I’m just trying to create some fresh chatter on the subject.

Using my sketchy memory from doing prep at Shakey’s on the Rockville Pike (Rockville, MD), I’m trying to back into some of the same numbers used by Mad_Ernie and El_Segundo– all before I start testing recipes. This discussion is entirely based on how my store mixed bulk flour, water, compressed yeast, solid vegetable shortening and one Shakey’s dough mix bag, circa 1975.

I seem to recall weighing a 16 oz glob of solid shortening per batch (fairly sure) and using one 16 oz block of compressed yeast per batch (very sure). I don’t remember the flour or water weights, but I’m highly confident we used more than 9 lbs of water (which is just over one gallon). So, our final dough weight would have been heavier per batch than the current 25# premix bag plus 9 lbs water.
Since my recollection is that our shortening and yeast were the same weight (I think), then they should also be the same by baker’s percent. In the above recipe, Mad_Earnie states that shortening is 2.5% and IDY is 0.75%. Firstly, I need to convert IDY to Compressed Yeast.

Lesaffre/Red Star provides a nice conversion chart where 1 lb of compressed yeast = 5.333 oz IDY.  By math: (0.75 oz IDY)*(16 oz comp yeast/5.33 oz IDY) = 2.25 oz comp yeast. So by logic, .75% IDY = 2.25% Compressed Yeast.

Comparing 2.25% yeast to 2.5% shortening means we’re at least in the same ballpark for shortening and yeast. For the moment, I’ll make them both 2.5% baker’s percent.

Since it’s fairly straight forward math using today’s premix recipe that a 25 lb bag of premix likely has a couple pounds of salt, sugar, IDY yeast and fat solids, it means the water ratio to flour is 9 lbs water per 23 lbs flour = 39% hydration which is close to Mad_Ernie’s  40% value. Close again.

Using a final dough ball weight of 34 lbs and cranking these numbers into the “Lehmann Pizza Dough Calculator” yields the following single batch results.

Flour (100%):    10491.43 g  |  370.07 oz | 23.13 lbs
Water (39%):    4091.66 g  |  144.33 oz | 9.02 lbs
CY (2.5%):    262.29 g | 9.25 oz | 0.58 lbs |
Salt (1%):    104.91 g | 3.7 oz | 0.23 lbs | 6.27 tbsp | 0.39 cups
Oil (2.5%):    262.29 g | 9.25 oz | 0.58 lbs | 19.43 tbsp | 1.21 cups
Sugar (2%):    209.83 g | 7.4 oz | 0.46 lbs | 17.54 tbsp | 1.1 cups
Total (147%):   15422.4 g | 544 oz | 34 lbs | TF = N/A

All good so far, but what about the fact that our store mixed larger batches than 34 pounds and split each batch between 5 bus tubs. How much did we rise in each tub? From previous postings that state a 34 pound batch is split into two, or 17 Lb per bus tub, then my final dough weight works out to 85 pounds. Could this be right? A 17 year old kid, dragging an 85 pound blob of dough out of a Hobart mixer bowl onto a prep-table single-handedly? I was 160 pounds at the time and strong legs. It was a struggle but I just don’t know. To test it, here’s another vague memory. We weighed our water in a pickle bucket on the monster-size balance beam scale by filling one bucket up with water and lugging it to the second bucket pouring until the scale balanced. Before doing any math I would have guessed 3 gallons went into the weighed bucket. Here’s the math…

Flour (100%):    26228.57 g  |  925.17 oz | 57.82 lbs
Water (39%):    10229.14 g  |  360.82 oz | 22.55 lbs  Est 2.7 gallons of water (using 8.35 Lb/gallon)
CY (2.5%):    655.71 g | 23.13 oz | 1.45 lbs |
Salt (1%):    262.29 g | 9.25 oz | 0.58 lbs | 15.66 tbsp | 0.98 cups
Oil (2.5%):    655.71 g | 23.13 oz | 1.45 lbs | 48.57 tbsp | 3.04 cups
Sugar (2%):    524.57 g | 18.5 oz | 1.16 lbs | 43.86 tbsp | 2.74 cups
Total (147%):   38556 g | 1360 oz | 85 lbs | TF = N/A
Single Ball:   7711.2 g | 272 oz | 17 lbs

Compare 3 gallons to the 2.7 gallon results of an 85 pound batch and it seems I’m close again. Result is that 85 lbs seems plausible and so 17 lbs per batch may be right.

So, there’s lots of assumptions here that would be validated with better information than I can recall, but I seem to be in the ball park. Challenge question: Could a 17 year old kid lug an 85 pound blob of dough out of a Hobart mixer bowl onto a prep table by himself? I think so – and if so - then 17 pounds per bus tub may be a consistent result between preparation methods (1975 versus now). It would be helpful to know weight per bus tub to replicate full-scale batch and rise and proof. Your thoughts? Math check?
Lightmeter

[Mad_Ernie]

Just chiming in here to say thanks to Lightmeter for all of his postings to-date and the assistance he has given those of us who still count ourselves as Shakey's fans from the old days.  

Also thanks to DNA Dan for helping to keep this thread moving again.  It's been way too long.


One thing I want to mention, just as a reminder, is that all of us on this and the cracker threads who have tried to clone or emulate what certain commercial pizza restaurants have done in the past with this type of low-hydration pizza dough have generally found that we lack one key piece of equipment (which DNA Dan was fortunate to purchase a while back): a sheeter.  

Some of us have tried various attempts at emulating a sheeter, but there is no true substitute for the real thing when it comes to that piece of equipment.  You can heat a good pizza stone at 550 degrees for an hour and come pretty close to generating the right amount of floor heat, but a sheeter does a form of physics magic in compressing the dough that no rolling pin can duplicate.  I think it was elsegundo who tried using a pasta sheeter, creating a couple sheets of dough and then sort of connecting them.  I have tried that, too, but it is still far from ideal, in my opinion.

I only bring this up because I know we've been down this road before I don't want anyone's hopes to get too high before realizing you need to spend a few $$$$ to really clone a pizza crust like Shakey's.  That doesn't even touch on the sauce issue (which is probably even more difficult to determine, at least in the amounts of the spices and herbs).

I don't want to discourage anyone.  In fact, I have learned something each time someone has tried a Shakey's clone experiment.  I'm just sayin' ...  

[Mad_Ernie]

Lydia,

Have you ever tried something similar to your Round Table pizza clone technique in making a Shakey's pizza, either in formula or layered crusts?  My memory with Shakey's is not great, but from what I have seen of more recent Shakey's pizzas, it seems RT still has a little more puffiness to the crust.  However, to emulate what a sheeter does, I have found your technique excellent for cloning RT's and so I wondered if you have taken it to the next level with Shakey's clone.

-ME