Little Caesars Dough Recipe?

[IlliniPizza]

Thanks November for all the detailed information.  We're pretty exacting at this website.

I like to be pretty exact, because restaurants tend to come and go and rarely do they come back with the same recipes.  Ten years ago, we had 14 LC's in a 30 mile radius, now we have 2.  I wish the recipes wouldn't go with them.

I bought some little caesar pans off ebay a couple of years ago.  12, 14, & 16 inch.  Their are easy to find due to store closings and such.  Hi-Wall aluminum, black as coal.

A few months ago, I made Randy's pizza replacing the honey in his recipe with Karo Light Corn Syrup instead of Honey.  To date it is the closest I have come LC's pizza.

I am going to make your LC recipe later this week.

The sauce recipe I have for LC is pretty close, but the tomatoes aren't right.  I am going to make the sauce using dei fratelli puree and some paste, and see if it helps.

Thanks

[November]

IlliniPizza,

Honey is a much closer approximation of HFCS than light corn syrup (LCS) as far as sugar content goes, but I can understand the flavor being closer with LCS because it doesn't contain insect byproducts.  What you could consider is using a soda with an unintrusive flavor for your sweetener.  That's sometimes hard to find, but every once in a while you might run across a club soda beverage sweetened with HFCS.  You can also hydrolyze sucrose to form free glucose and fructose with proportions very close to HFCS.  It just requires a small amount of acid (e.g. acetic [vinegar], citric) and a lot of heat.  Of course you could also just pick up a bottle of HFCS.  Or use slightly more LCS than what the recipe calls for with honey.  The difference is because of the much higher levels of glucose in LCS.  Glucose isn't nearly as sweet as fructose, so you can get away with more LCS if you're trying to use it as a substitute for honey or HFCS.  Also because of the higher glucose levels, yeast is going to metabolize faster.

On a related note (to sugar, not LC), for those who don't like the flavor of molasses, or want a better alternative to honey, use maple syrup.  It's high in sucrose (higher than molasses), and low in fructose (lower than molasses), yet it still contains a lot of minerals (lower than molasses).

It's funny that you are going to try using Del Fratelli puree when I just recently stopped using their puree.  These days I use Pomi strained tomatos.  That's not to say that I don't like Del Fratelli.  It just didn't fit my viscosity and density needs.

- red.november

[Y-TOWN]

IlliniPizza,



  These days I use Pomi strained tomatos- red.november

I have started to use that product as well - first class tomato products IMO

[November]

I have started to use that product as well - first class tomato products IMO

I noticed that Mario Batali on tonight's Iron Chef America used Pomi strained tomatoes in his osso buco braising sauce.

[TWild]

Great thread!  I'll be trying this soon.

[Microchick02]

Hi!  I have very much enjoyed reading this thread!  I came across it while looking for a recipe for Little Ceasars crazy bread.  I LOVE crazy bread, but unfortunately I can only get it via a 2 hour drive, or pay $26.50 through a fund raiser!  The fund raiser version, by the way, tastes EXACTLY THE SAME as the resturaunt version!  I need help though, I am cooking illiterate and don't know much about complex recipes.  What I am hoping is that if I can get the garlic butter/ parmesan topping right, the dough can be off just a bit?  I have found online through a different site that I can use a 10oz tube of Pillsbury pizza dough- has anyone tried this?  The recipe is
1- 10oz tube pillsburry pizza dough
2tbsp. margerine
1tsp. garlic salt
Kraft 100% Parmesan Cheese.

Any modification recommendations to make it taste right?  Thanks!

[November]

I haven't tried Pillsbury pizza dough, but I can't imagine it tasting very similar to Little Caesars.  That would be way too easy.  As far as the dressing goes, "garlic butter" is used, not salt.  If you use garlic salt you will probably have salty breadsticks.  Just brush on garlic butter and sprinkle on parmesan cheese.  Parmesan cheese is already slightly salty.

[Pete-zza]

Microchick02,

I have never had any of the LC Crazy Bread products, but here is a list of the ingredients used in such products, as taken from the fundraising section of the LC website:

CRAZY BREAD® INGREDIENTS: 

Bread: Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Water, Vegetable Oil (Soybean Oil, Soy Lecithin), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Yeast, Glucona Delta Lactone, Salt, Baking Soda, Cellulose Gum, Sodium Propionate (Preservative), Food Starch-Modified, Corn Syrup Solids, Vital Wheat Gluten, Dough Conditioners (L-Cysteine, ascorbic acid, enzymes), Natural and Artificial Flavors.
Allergen Information:
Contains: Soy, Wheat and Milk.

Garlic Buttery Sauce: Liquid and Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Water, Salt, Vegetable Mono & Diglycerides, Soy Lecithin, Sodium Benzoate (A Preservative), Annatto (Color), Natural & Artificial Flavors, Calcium Disodium EDTA added to Protect Flavor, Citric Acid.
Allergen Information:
Contains: Soy.

Parmesan Cheese/Salt Mix: Pasteurized Milk, Salt, Cheese Culture, Enzymes, Powdered Cellulose (To Prevent Caking), Sorbic Acid (Preservative).
Allergen Information:
Contains: Milk.

Unfortunately, LC does not provide sufficient information (or at least I haven’t been able to find it) to tell us whether the same ingredients are used for the Crazy Bread products in their stores as for the fundraising versions. It may be that the same dough is used in the stores for both pizzas and Crazy Bread, as some members have suggested, but LC may be using contractors to make a different Crazy Bread product for fundraising purposes, which may require using preservatives and the like to increase shelf life and to withstand a different marketing/distribution system. With some experimentation, one might be able to reverse engineer the fundraising Crazy Bread product as specified above, but most people aren’t likely to have most of the ingredients to do this. Even if one does not use the additives, preservatives and conditioners--which I believe is a good place to start--the average person is unlikely to have access to high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup solids. These are not the same as the corn syrup sold in supermarkets.

Looking at the Garlic Buttery Sauce, unless the garlic (in whatever form) is included in “Natural and Artificial Flavors”, there doesn’t seem to be much of it in the sauce.

Peter

[November]

Peter,

The ingredients look about right for the in-store "garlic butter."  There is no suspended garlic solids in the sauce, so yes, the flavoring of garlic is all that represents the garlic portion.  Of course it should be obvious that baking soda is not an ingredient found in in-store dough, so the dough ingredients listed do not apply to traditional in-store Crazy Bread.  The parmesan cheese we used to sprinkle on the bread at Little Caesars was by all visual accounts just cheese.  It was probably made with a slightly higher amount of salt than typical cheese, but it definitely did not have extraneous salt.  I have used plain, grated parmesan cheese from the store shelf and gotten identical results.  When I make my version of the "garlic butter" sauce (which incidentally was as recent as Monday this week), I use half soy based butter spread and half butter (by weight) with 10% dry granulated garlic, microwaved to 185°F and allowed to set at room temperature for about six hours before using.  It's a bit thicker than the Little Caesars sauce because of the use of garlic solids and butter, but it's relatively the same flavor.

- red.november

[TronCarter]

I worked at LC's about 15 years ago and here is how it used to be done (I don't know if it is different now).  One regular small pizza dough (round, not pan) that was run through the sheeter once to make a football shape.  It was cut 7 times to make 8 pieces on a well seasoned sheet pan, no oil or non-stick required.  Put in halfway through the conveyor belt over so it cooked about 4 minutes instead of the 8 minutes for pizza.  The garlic butter was 3lbs butter and 3 tablespoons of garlic from a jar.  I may be remembering the proportions incorrectly, but ingredients are correct (back then at least there were garlic solids somewhat suspended in the mixture, they usually settled to the bottom so you had to stir it up with the basting brush).  The parm cheese mixture was 1 large carton (5lbs I believe) and 10 ounces of kosher salt.  All butter and cheese were added after cooking.

The garlic butter for "crazy crust", the stuff on the edge of the pizza was something different.  It came in large bottles all premixed and tasted quite a bit different than the crazy bread garlic butter.  Maybe they just use the bottled stuff now.  They have obviously changed the formulation of their pizzas since I worked there and I don't care for them anymore and don't go there but maybe once a year.

Crazy sauce was plain pizza sauce warmed in a double boiler, the same used on round and pan pizza. 

I worked at a Michigan LC's which is the birth place of LC.  Our stores were often visited by the Ilitch's and shown to other prospective franchisees as models, so I know we did things the corporate way.  The further away from Detroit you got, maybe it was done differently.

[November]

The garlic butter for "crazy crust", the stuff on the edge of the pizza was something different.

Well, that's not very efficient.  Making the garlic butter as an exemption to the Blue Line product is one thing, but to use both is "Crazy!"  Some stores elected to make some of their own products according to guidelines to avoid paying the Blue Line costs, or because inventory was depleted, but I have never heard of a store doing both as a matter of common practice.

[TronCarter]

Crazy crust was first introduced during my 3 years there, as well as changing crazy bread from a medium dough to a small and making the sauce cups smaller.  I don't believe Blue Line offered a garlic butter before crazy crust.  At that time at least there was a distinct difference in taste between the two butters and I tried crazy bread made with the prepackaged stuff and didn't like it.  I can't really describe the difference, it just wasn't right.  The prepackaged stuff was much easier to apply to the rim of a pizza however because it didn't have any chunks of garlic in it that would clog up the squirter bottle.  At that time they also had sesame seed, poppy seed, and garlic butter w/same parm mix.  Back then I think they still had a profit margin and could afford to have the two butters.

[brandonjburton]

Hello I'd like to chime in on this. I am a big fan of LC pizza and I've read this forum all the way through three times and I've got dough in the fridge right now....

My question is: Everyone here seems to agree that you leave the dough uncovered in the fridge for about 24hrs, then wont it be difficult to sheet/form after its done in the fridge? Wont it be like playing with play dough that sat out to long, little pieces of hard bits mixed in with the soft.

Would some one please give us some clarifaction on this please.

[November]

brandonjburton,

It's not a matter of agreement.  That's just what Little Caesars does with their dough.  So if you're looking for authenticity, cover the dough balls with oil, but don't encase them in anything else.  I think most people will probably want to encase their dough, in a bowl with a lid for example, because they don't want to pick up any funk floating around in their refrigerator.  Whenever I refrigerate my dough, I always use a glass bowl and lid, but I don't go for LC authenticity.  Also understand that those dough balls at LC are stacked in a special dough rack, so you may not have access to the same dynamics.

If your dough ball is well oiled (sometimes LC dough is over-oiled) drying out shouldn't be an issue.  I remember there being a few times the dough would get a little crusty around the edges, but that was usually after being in the walk-in cooler for three days.

- red.november

[brandonjburton]

November,
Thank you very much I'm pretty sure thats the first time anyone has said (although perhaps it was implied) to cover it with oil lol. Can you or anyone else give us newbies a method for telling when the dough has been kneaded enough? I've heard that when you make an impression in a bread dough that if it fills it self back in that its ready. Does that apply to LC pizza dough?

Thanks

[November]

Thank you very much I'm pretty sure thats the first time anyone has said (although perhaps it was implied) to cover it with oil lol.

Place in the refrigerator in a lightly sealed container coated with olive oil. for overnight up to three days.

We'd put all the ingredients in the Hobart (the big mixer) and then break it apart into chunks of certain weights (anyone remember the weights? and what size pan corresponded to which weight?), we'd ball it to get a tight skin, put it on an oiled tray and brush the balls with the oil and put it in the walk in cooler.

I form the dough into a tight-skinned ball, put in an oiled proofing tin, press down on top of the dough to slightly flatten it, brush soybean oil on top and put in the fridge for about 24 hours.

At no point in the dough's life is it covered with anything but oil.  Once the balls are formed and placed on the tray, oil is brushed on and the tray is placed on a rack inside the walk-in.

Can you or anyone else give us newbies a method for telling when the dough has been kneaded enough? I've heard that when you make an impression in a bread dough that if it fills it self back in that its ready. Does that apply to LC pizza dough?

The mixer was on a timer, and because the mixer is vastly different from the kind you would use, that knead time won't mean anything to you.  The dough should be pliable and smooth.  The impression test is mainly for determining when dough has fermented enough.  No such test is performed at LC.  You just pull the dough out within a certain window of time (1-3 days).

[brandonjburton]

I stand corrected  , thanks

[mommasarah]

I worked for ceasers making dough for a year. There is one thing that everyone has failed to add to the dough recipe it is something small that effects the flavor largely. Before you put the dough down to cook on the pan don't use oil, or flour use corn meal.  This give the pizza a different texture than the others as well while eating it.

[mommasarah]

The mixer was on a timer, and because the mixer is vastly different from the kind you would use, that knead time won't mean anything to you.  The dough should be pliable and smooth.  The impression test is mainly for determining when dough has fermented enough.  No such test is performed at LC.  You just pull the dough out within a certain window of time (1-3 days).

i remember getting dough that didnt sit(prep) (rise) long enough or that had old yeast it made the pizza crust hard

[mommasarah]

Hello I'd like to chime in on this. I am a big fan of LC pizza and I've read this forum all the way through three times and I've got dough in the fridge right now....

My question is: Everyone here seems to agree that you leave the dough uncovered in the fridge for about 24hrs, then wont it be difficult to sheet/form after its done in the fridge? Wont it be like playing with play dough that sat out to long, little pieces of hard bits mixed in with the soft.

Would some one please give us some clarifaction on this please.

the little ceasers i worked at covered the dough with olive oil and parchment paper