Mystery Pizza by Steve and Me at Market Yesterday

[norma427]

I also emailed Tim Huff this morning and asked him a few questions about the Bisquick Pancake and Baking mix and the two biscuit mixes I have tried in these doughs in this thread.  I did sent Tim Huff pictures of the two pizzas made with the biscuit mixes.

This is what I wrote to Tim Huff and what he replied to me today.

Hi Tim,
 
I am a pizza maker and have a small pizza stand at a local farmer's market, called Root's Country Market in Manheim, Pa.
 
What I wonder is I experiment with many types of pizzas and have used Bisquick for years in making biscuits, pancakes, and shortbread.  I recently used one of the Bisquick Buttermilk Biscuit pouches and made a very tasty and normal looking pizza, by adding other ingredients.  I also used the cheese-garlic biscuit mix and also made a great pizza by adding other ingredients to that pouch.  I am now trying to reproduce my same results with Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking mix.  Do you have any idea what would be the best approach for me trying to do this?  I don't know what kind of flour that is used in Bisquick products, but I would guess it was a low protein flour.  I have looked on the web for pizzas made with Bisquick products and to me they don't look like they turn out too well.  I had two successful bakes with the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking mix for pizza, but they weren't the same as when I used the Bisquick Buttermilk or Bisquick cheese-garlic biscuit mixes.  
 
Do you have any idea of how the three Bisquick products compare in ingredients and what I might try next to get the same results using the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking mix?
 
These are a few pictures of what the pizzas looked like using the Bisquick biscuit mixes, from the biscuit pouches.
 
Thanks for any advice.

Norma

Hi Norma -
Thanks for the e-mail.  That’s exciting that you found a pizza dough that you liked using a Bisquick product.  Unfortunately, going from the pouch biscuit mixes to the boxed Bisquick mix you are working with two different products.  The pouch is really formulated “just” for biscuits, whereas the boxed mix is really an all-purpose mix.  The type of fat used in the pouch mixes is very different than that used in the all-purpose mix and this difference would relate to the differences that you see in the crust.  Most everything thing else in the formula is about the same.
 
What I would suggest, however, is that one of our foodservice Gold Medal Biscuit mix is much closer to the pouch mix (as it uses the same type of fat) and I think you would have better success.  It is available in 5# boxes (code 11765) or a 25# bag (code 11766) and could be purchased through foodservice distributors such as Sysco or USFoodservice.
 
I hope this helps!
 
 
Tim Huff

Norma

[norma427]

This is the third Sukie pizza made today, using the Buttermilk Biscuit mix.  Congrats Peter, you were successful in providing “goody bags” to make all three of these Sukie pizzas today!  

Pictures below

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

more pictures

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures..Whew that was a lot of pictures to post in one day. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Thank you conducting the latest set of Sukie experiments and for posting your results. It sounds like you had a busy day today, but a very productive one.

Now that you have made several Sukie pizzas, can you give us an overall assessment of the pros and cons of the pizzas made from the various mixes and "goody bags"?

With respect to your email exchange with Tim Huff, I think he may have misspoken on the fat content of the various mixes. Both the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking Mix and the Bisquick Buttermilk biscuit mix contain partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil. It is the Bisquick Garlic Cheese biscuit mix that has the different fat composition. That mix has both partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil and other oils, including palm oil. Yet, that mix also turned out pretty well when used with one of the "goody bags".

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Thank you conducting the latest set of Sukie experiments and for posting your results. It sounds like you had a busy day today, but a very productive one.

Now that you have made several Sukie pizzas, can you give us an overall assessment of the pros and cons of the pizzas made from the various mixes and "goody bags"?

With respect to your email exchange with Tim Huff, I think he may have misspoken on the fat content of the various mixes. Both the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking Mix and the Bisquick Buttermilk biscuit mix contain partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil. It is the Bisquick Garlic Cheese biscuit mix that has the different fat composition. That mix has both partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil and other oils, including palm oil. Yet, that mix also turned out pretty well when used with one of the "goody bags".

Peter

Peter,

Steve and I had fun with the Sukie pizzas today.  I am still surprised how fast they can be made.  

I still am not sure why I had the results I had this past weekend, when I tried to make a Sukie pizza at home, but think I might have overfermented the dough.  I don’t know if you think that is a possibility or not, but the dough today in all three pizzas was much easier to handle than the other ones I have made in this thread except the first pizza with the Betty Crocker pizza mix.  Do you think I might have let some of these doughs go to long with the bulk ferment and then also the ferment after balling?  I am still not sure if there is a certain time when to use these doughs, but from my experiments so far, think there might be a certain time they should be used.  Do you have any thought on the amount of time to use these doughs?

I think it is very easy to make these Sukie pizza using any of the biscuit, muffin or Bisquick Pancake and Baking mixes, after I got the troubles ironed out.  All of these pizzas did have a good taste in the crust.  The Buttermilk biscuit mix, with your “goody bag” does smell like pancakes when it is baking.  It still has a more fluffy pancake taste.  The Bisquick Pancake and Baking mix does taste more like a regular pizza.  I thought the Triple Berry muffin mix, gave the most elegant taste to the crust.  I really like the berry taste in the crust.  That pizza was moister than the others.  The rim and crust just melted in my mouth.  I really liked it.  

I think both of your “goody bags” really worked out well in all of the pizzas I have tried so far.

Do you think I should send a reply to Tim?

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I do believe that it was possible that the last Sukie dough you used at home fermented too long. You used a fair amount of IDY and there no doubt is a fair amount of leavening in the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking Mix. Consequently, the two together can provide a powerful leavening machine. I had suggested using the IDY both for flavor and to get some fermentation byproducts. The dextrose in the Bisquick mix helps that fermentation process along because, as a simple sugar, it is immediately available as food for the yeast. I had tentatively ruled out overfermentation as the cause of the results you achieved at home because the crust looked so much different from the comparable one that you made at market. I know you are careful and meticulous with your measurements, but I wanted to rule out the possibility of human error, which is something that occasionally afflicts all of us.

I think the key component of the "goody bags" that has made everything work has been the use of the King Arthur bread flour (KABF). The rest of the ingredients in the "goody bags" were simply adjusted to track the mixes that I analyzed as part of my reverse engineering efforts. There had to be enough of the KABF to take the commercial mixes from the pancake and biscuit (and your recent multi-berry muffin mix) realm to the pizza dough realm with the flour blend (presumptably cake and bread flour) having a total protein content that would be commensurate with a flour used to make pizza dough. As it so happened, the amount of flour that would do that was close to the amount of flour that I concluded from my reverse engineering efforts was in the pouch mixes. I think that was just fortuitous, with the chips neatly falling into place. A side benefit--an important one--is that I was able to use the full amount of the mixes in the pouches (or comparable amounts from the boxed Bisquick Original mix). Otherwise, we would have had to weigh out amounts of mixes from the pouches, and you would have ended up with left over mix that might not be usable for much of anything else.

If there is a drawback to the approach I used in coming up with the "goody bags" is that you end up with an amount of dough that is fairly high. It is enough to make a single 16" pizza or two roughly 12" pizzas. In a commercial setting, as at Betty Crocker's/GM, that would not be a particularly good selling feature since home bakers are unlikely to want--or to be able--to make 16" pizzas and they may not want to make two roughly 12" pizzas. A more viable commercial application from the Betty Crocker/GM perspective would be to concoct a mix that comes in a box and is measured out based on the desired size and number of pizzas. Since the ingredients for such a mix would be the same as the range of Bisquick mixes you have been exploring, the mix would have similar stability and shelf life.

With respect to Tom Huff, I don't think there is much to be gained from responding back to him. He would have to get into the nitty gritty of what we have been doing in this thread, which would take up more time than he might be able to devote to the matter. The same would apply if you went to Tom Lehmann, except that he would think that we have lost our minds. I might add that I have never mentioned our forum to Tim Huff. I did not want him to associate me with the forum. He has always viewed and treated me as a professional, not an amateur. I'd like to keep it that way.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

Thanks for your thoughts about I might have overfermented the Sukie dough at home.  I had thought, that might be possible, because when I went to open the dough, it just wanted to almost fall apart and keep stretching, even when I went to try and place it on my pizza peel.  I really had problems transferring the skin to my pizza peel.  That is how it ended up being too big for my pizza stone.  I back tracked and thought over all that I had done with these “goody bags”, and experiments and thought about how some of the doughs behaved.  Some of them were almost like the one I did at home, but not as bad.  I told Steve yesterday, I wasn’t going to bulk ferment as long, or ferment as long after the reball to see if the dough would behave better.  That approach seemed to work, in all the Sukie pizzas made yesterday.  I know everyone can make measurement errors, but thought after the first one I did, I would be really careful in measuring everything.  

I also think the key component of the “goody bags” was the KABF.  Your reverse engineering of the other analyzed ingredients also were necessary for this to work to be able to take any of these mixes from something else into the pizza realm. I don’t think luck or fortune, had much to do with these successful pizzas. It was your hard work that made it happen.  The Triple Berry Muffin mix, was too sticky, because I guess, I had added to much water (I had used the amount for the biscuit mixes with the “goody bag”). It didn’t feel like pizza dough at all. I then added the 2.5 oz. of ADM high-gluten flour. That must have taken the Triple Berry Muffin mix, along with your first “goody bag” into the pizza realm.  

I think Betty Crocker/GM could benefit from your reverse-engineering to be able to come up with a much better pizza mix.  

I know you have posted before that Tim Huff doesn’t know you are here on the forum, and I didn’t say anything about you in my email.  I just wanted to see if Tim Huff could give me any useful information about the products.

Lol, I do think Tom Lehmann would think we lost our minds, if he would read this thread.  

I give you five stars for all the hard work you have done on this project!  I only started this thread to see how a home pizza makers crust would taste, using a Betty Crocker product. Thanks for making it possible for my wish come true in this thread, for other Betty Crocker mixes to be made into pizzas.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK7qU1Ik2HQ" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK7qU1Ik2HQ</a>

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Thank you for the kind words. But please don't take the Betty Crocker pizza crust mix and ask me how to make donuts out of it . You can ask Tom Lehmann for that since in a prior life he actually was in the donut business.

Peter

[norma427]

This was a reheated slice of the Triple Berry pizza.  The slice was reheated in the microwave with added blueberries.  This was the first time I liked a pizza reheated in the microwave.  The added blueberries just added the final touch to the pizza.  The crust on this Triple Berry pizza was so nice and soft and also light and airy.  In my opinion, this is a great dessert pizza.  The fig dressing with the added berry crust with blueberries is going to be one of my favorite dessert pizzas.  I think I am going to try the Triple Berry Sukie pizza at market again next week and see how customers respond to it.

I still have one slice to reheat.  I gave a slice to my mother, and she really enjoyed it too.

Some pig farmer's yell “suey”, “suey” to call the pig's to come eat.  Maybe Sukie will come! 

Pictures below

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

When you have a spare moment, would you mind posting the items, including the Betty Crocker muffin mix and the "goody bag" ingredients, that went into the latest dessert pizza? That way, members will have everything in one place. You also mentioned that you had to add a bit more flour to overcome some stickiness of the dough. Would you reduce the amount of water the next time instead?

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

When you have a spare moment, would you mind posting the items, including the Betty Crocker muffin mix and the "goody bag" ingredients, that went into the latest dessert pizza? That way, members will have everything in one place. You also mentioned that you had to add a bit more flour to overcome some stickiness of the dough. Would you reduce the amount of water the next time instead?

Peter

Peter,

What I added to the Betty Crocker Triple Berry Muffin mix was your “goody bag” at Reply 63 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg137736.html#msg137736 The added water amount was 7.02 ounces of hot water.  The dough was then too sticky and not like a pizza dough, so I added 2.5 oz. of ADM flour (which is a high-gluten bromated flour) The dough was still a little sticky, but not much.  I then let the dough proof for about 1 ½ hrs, then balled the dough with a little more flour, then brushed the dough ball with olive oil and the let the dough ball sit at room temperature for another about 1 ½ hrs. or a little less. 

I think I would try using less water next week.  I don’t know though, because I did like how moist and airy the crumb turned out.  I don’t know if the crumb turned out that way, because of the high-gluten added flour or because the dough was a little sticky.  If I had to guess, I would think the light and airy crust was from the higher hydration.  The pizza was a little thicker, too, from the added flour.  The weight of the Betty Crocker Berry Muffin mix is 6.5 oz. (184g), so that was less weight than the Buttermilk Biscuit mix was. (7.5 oz, 212 grams) This was a 16" pizza I made.

This is also the picture I had posted before of the Triple Berry Muffin mix.

When I do this experiment again next week, I will try to give better directions if anyone is interested.  I was only using this Triple Berry Muffin mix in an experiment to see if it would work. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I know that the Stretch-Out product that you have been testing out in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13820.0.html is almost ice cream-like in texture but, out of curiosity, were the Betty Crocker Pizza Crust Mix and the various Bisquick mixes that you used to make your Sukie and other pizzas fine textured or did they have small lumps of fat dispersed through them? In this vein, I recalled trying to sift a Jiffy Pizza Mix product, which uses lard or similar fats, and I couldn't get everything through the screen. I know that some mixes that the larger pizza chains use, like Godfather's, have sprayed forms of fat in the mixes. I also spoke with a representative of another company today that makes a pizza crust mix and was told that the shortening in the mix is a sprayed form of shortening.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

I know that the Stretch-Out product that you have been testing out in the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13820.0.html is almost ice cream-like in texture but, out of curiosity, were the Betty Crocker Pizza Crust Mix and the various Bisquick mixes that you used to make your Sukie and other pizzas fine textured or did they have small lumps of fat dispersed through them? In this vein, I recalled trying to sift a Jiffy Pizza Mix product, which uses lard or similar fats, and I couldn't get everything through the screen. I know that some mixes that the larger pizza chains use, like Godfather's, have sprayed forms of fat in the mixes. I also spoke with a representative of another company today that makes a pizza crust mix and was told that the shortening in the mix is a sprayed form of shortening.

Peter

Peter,

As can be seen in the picture of the dough at Reply 75 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg137844.html#msg137844 using the Betty Crocker Buttermilk mix in combination with your “goody bag” there wasn’t much of any fat granules in the dough.  I really didn’t notice them either in the mix. As the Bisquick Original Pancake and Baking mix, doesn’t have as much fat as the Buttermilk Bisquick mix, I didn’t notice fat granules in the Original Bisquick mix either, when looking at it or when making the dough, as can be seen in Reply 175 second picture down http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg139503.html#msg139503 Even when using the Betty Crocker Triple Berry muffin mix, I couldn’t detect any fat in the dough or mix, as can also be seen in the dough at Reply http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg139495.html#msg139495 When I could notice fat in the dough was when I made the dough for the Betty Crocker cheese-bisuit mix at Reply 140 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg138548.html#msg138548 unless that substance was something else.  What ever that substance was it also could be seen in the finished pizza crust at Reply 143 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13686.msg138553.html#msg138553

I really wouldn’t say any of the mixes or Original Bisquick were fine textured, but no other fat (or similar substance) was in the mixes, that I could detect. 

Edna did give me contact information for Lentz Milling to possibly get a product like partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil at Reply 52 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,13820.msg139846.html#msg139846

Edna was the lady that was helping me with the Stretch-Out product and also other products she sent to me to experiment with.

Thanks for talking to another company that makes a pizza crust mix.  It is interesting that they use a spray dried shortening in their mix.  I guess that would be a much better approach, because it would finely disperse the fat much better.  When I was trying to make a sugar-free caramel corn years ago, I also found out about spray dried products, but they were too expensive for me to experiment with.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

As you can see from the photo below, the Bisquick Cheese-Garlic biscuit mix has so many different ingredients that it is hard to say which of them is visible in the dough and the finished pizza.

I am beginning to think that GM is using a dried form of partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oils. What would be interesting is to know how a wet form compares with a dry form, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

As you can see from the photo below, the Bisquick Cheese-Garlic biscuit mix has so many different ingredients that it is hard to say which of them is visible in the dough and the finished pizza.

I am beginning to think that GM is using a dried form of partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oils. What would be interesting is to know how a wet form compares with a dry form, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Peter

Peter,

I did post before Steve and I did tasted whatever the substance was in the Biquick cheese-garlic mix and it tasted like nothing. 

I wonder if I can get to purchase something like shortening powder if that would get closer to what GM uses.

This is a link to a forum discussing using shortening powder.  http://www.food.com/bb/viewtopic.zsp?t=285205 I wonder if that is something like GM uses.
http://store.honeyvillegrain.com/powderedshorteninglargecan.aspx
http://amatterofpreparedness.blogspot.com/2009/08/its-matter-of-shortening-powder.html

Norma

[norma427]

I had replied to Edna's email, about using freeze dried oil or finding a some kind of oil that could be used in a base of flour.

This is what Edna replied to me, a short while ago.

Norma – My lunch was great! Yes, I had pizza,  I have never heard of freeze dried oil.  We sell what is called a Plastic Base – this means the product has the shortening in the base.  You may want to ask Lentz – they can give you a number for a shortening company like Ventura Foods – They manufacture shortening - - Thank you.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I have never heard of freeze dried shortening either. When I did a Google search on "freeze dried shortening", I got four hits. So, that terminology cannot be right. I have heard of shortening powders and spray dried shortening. I believe that shortening powders and spray dried shortening may be the same thing. For example, if you look at the Godfather's Pizza mix as set forth at http://vegan.fm/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ingredient-Statement.pdf, the "spray dried shortening" comprises partially hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup solids and sodium caseinate. If you look at a typical shortening powder sold as a "shortening powder", for example, at http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FS%20D145&bhcd2=1222514654, you will find a very similar ingredients list.

What I found interesting is that most of the places that sell shortening powders seem to address mainly emergency or survivalist or camping markets. I am sure that there are commercial sources of powdered shortenings that serve baking and similar applications.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

I have never heard of freeze dried shortening either. When I did a Google search on "freeze dried shortening", I got four hits. So, that terminology cannot be right. I have heard of shortening powders and spray dried shortening. I believe that shortening powders and spray dried shortening may be the same thing. For example, if you look at the Godfather's Pizza mix as set forth at http://vegan.fm/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ingredient-Statement.pdf, the "spray dried shortening" comprises partially hydrogenated soybean oil, corn syrup solids and sodium caseinate. If you look at a typical shortening powder sold as a "shortening powder", for example, at http://beprepared.com/product.asp?pn=FS%20D145&bhcd2=1222514654, you will find a very similar ingredients list.

What I found interesting is that most of the places that sell shortening powders seem to address mainly emergency or survivalist or camping markets. I am sure that there are commercial sources of powdered shortenings that serve baking and similar applications.

Peter

Peter,

I don’t think I had my morning coffee when I sent that email to Edna this morning..lol I meant to write in the email spray dried shortening.  No wonder she didn’t know what I was talking about.   

When I did Google shortening powder, I though that might be something like what is used in the GM products.  I also saw that it was mostly used by survivalists or camping markets.

I will call Lentz, Ventura, or either look on the web to see where spray dried shortening might be able to be purchased.  I would guess that is what is used in the Betty Crocker mixes or Original Bisquick to keep them dry feeling, with no clumps of noticeable oil.

Norma