What do you think I should add to the mix of Caputo flour in the deck oven to get better coloration, or do you think I should read the A16 thread? I know you did discuss crust coloration at Reply 189 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12173.msg119874.html#msg119874 in my milk kefir thread. I have different products at home I could add, even more eggs.
Norma,
I do not think that I have much to offer in the way of advice on the above matter. I suspect that the recipe you used evolved because people asked for a recipe using Caputo flour that they could use with their standard, unmodified home ovens. I can see how and why that might happen after people have had a chance to eat a really good and authentic Neapolitan style pizza baked in the right kind of oven. I think the problem with such a recipe is that just about anything you do with a Caputo flour outside of the norm alters its features in negative ways that takes it out of the realm of a Neapolitan style pizza. Maybe that is why you posted your recent experiment in the General Pizza Making board rather than in the Neapolitan board.
When I was active in the A16 thread, there were a few of us who tried just about everything we could think of at the time to achieve decent crust color using Caputo flour in the context of our standard home ovens. We tried sugar, malts (diastatic and nondiastatic), pulverized Caputo flour (to increase starch damage for increased amylase performance), milk powder, dried dairy whey and oven within an oven configurations. All of the Caputo dough modifications worked to a certain extent but they altered the normal characteristics of a real Caputo crust to the point where the Caputo flour lost many of its unique and favored qualities, especially texture and, in some cases, color. We didn't try eggs but they would have a similar effect on a Caputo crust. Using a considerably larger thickness factor (larger than even the one you used in your most recent experiment), modest hydration levels, and small amounts of oil and sugar was the best we could do, even if that meant we had to sacrifice crust coloration. When I look at the recipe you used, I can see the same kinds of issues as we experienced. When I first looked at the recipe, and especially the large amounts of oil and sugar, I thought that the recipe looked more like an American style recipe--like something that Domino's might make if it were told that it had to use 00 flour and try to emulate the Neapolitan style with a thinner, smaller profile. There is nothing wrong with that but it bears no relationship to an authentic Neapolitan style pizza. I would rather tell people to use a combination of all-purpose flour and either cake flour or pastry flour and save themselves the expense of buying Caputo flour. Those blends were what many people used, and some pizza cookbook authors recommended, before Caputo flour became available at the retail level.
The above said, maybe there are a few things that you might try to get increased crust coloration. Using topical measures such as applying oil to the rim before baking or a mild sugar solution used in the same way might work. Since the Maillard reactions require an amino acid and a reducing sugar, the sugar in the mild sugar solution might be something like fructose, which is a simple sugar. It may also turn out that if you are able to get your deck oven to a much higher temperature you might get better crust coloration solely because of the much higher temperatures. That might allow you to move back more in the direction of a real Neapolitan style.
Peter
