Aimless Pizza Hut Thin & Crispy

[AimlessRyan]

Having been jonesing for Pizza Hut thin crust lately, in addition to growing kinda tired of my quest to clone Tommy's, I've decided to try cloning Pizza Hut's thin crust. Since I've never tried this before, I'm starting with a relatively blank slate in terms of dough formula.

The dough formula I'm using is based loosely on the Thin-Crust Pizza page on the main web site.

100% All Trumps flour
40.5% Water
1.25% ADY
1.6% Salt
6.25% Canola oil
0.75% Sugar

I made some changes to the formula, which I based partly on my experience making similar kinds of pizza at home, in addition to my experience working at Pizza Hut. As a former Pizza Hut driver, I've handled and sheeted many hundreds of their thin crust pizza dough skins, so I think I have a pretty good memory of how the dough should feel and handle. However, I've never made the dough at Pizza Hut. (It's not as if I could have learned anything by mixing a pre-packaged dough mix, though.)

I made my first batch of dough at about 10:00 this morning, mixing for about five minutes. After mixing, I divided the dough into two pieces. I immediately put one piece of dough in the refrigerator (in a bag), and I left the other piece in the mixer bowl, covered with plastic wrap, to bulk-ferment for several hours.

Here's a picture of the dough immediately after mixing. The dough did feel just about how I remember Pizza Hut thin dough. At Pizza Hut, the thin dough never changed much throughout the day, even though it was left in a container at room temperature all day. I suspect this resulted more from the dough's stiffness than from a low yeast content, which is why I increased the yeast from Steve's cracker crust formula. I also used a slightly higher hydration figure, as well as double the oil of Steve's formula, and a little less sugar.

[AimlessRyan]

Here's the dough after scaling, then again after a five-hour ferment.

[AimlessRyan]

Pic 1: I'm using a cutter pan, which you already knew. The pan is seasoned (dark) on the bottom.

Pic 2: The tools I used to dock and trim the dough in the pan.

Pic 3: This is actually showing that the 10" dough skin weighed about 6.45 oz (TF=0.068 oz of dough per square inch).

[AimlessRyan]

Pic 1: Baked for 12 minutes at 500.
Pic 2: Profile of the baked pizza.
Pic 3: Bottom of the baked pizza.
Pic 4: Slice profile.

[AimlessRyan]

Verdict: Not quite what I was shooting for, but close. It was pretty good.

Critique:

• I used too much oil. I could tell the dough had too much oil just by looking at it. This pizza wasn't as stiff as a Pizza Hut thin, either. Rather, it was slightly biscuity, due to too much oil. I will cut the oil by at least half next time.
• Probably a little too much hydration, but that's hard to say for sure, due to the fact that I know I used too much oil.
• I rolled it a hair too thick.
• 12 minutes at 500 (on a stone, on the bottom rack) worked about perfectly. I left it in the pan the whole time.
• Sugar gave the crust a nice amount of browning.
• Probably too much yeast. I will decrease the yeast percentage with the next batch.

I was surprised this formula created dough that was relatively easy to roll, especially considering I used All Trumps flour. I was considering using KAAP, but I'm glad All Trumps worked well (because I have about 45 lbs of it).

I think my next stab at this will be pretty close to what you can get at Pizza Hut.

[weemis]

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