The Mystery Dough Pizza for Tomorrow

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Nora,

To my eye, all of the pizzas, Pepe's and clones, look quite similar. But it is good to know that you now have more choices available to you than you had before. And it sounds like the Pepe's clones have held up well when compared with the real Pepe's dough.

Did your and/or your taste testers have a preference as between the BforB and KAAP flours?

Assuming you continue to make Pepe's clones, do you have a preference as to the type of yeast to use? Or have you decided to table the Pepe's clones, at least for the time being, insofar as market is concerned.

Peter

[norma427]

Peter,

All the Pepe’s clones and the Pepe’s pizzas all looked quite similar to Steve, my taste testers and me too.  The recent two Pepe’s clones tasted the best.  I guess that would have been from the increased TF.  We were all undecided which Pepe’s clone we liked the best yesterday.  The people that liked the crispest crust like the Pepe’s clone made with the KAAP.  For some reason that pizza had the best taste in the crust, even if it was a little.  I know it has been posted before that cake yeast really doesn’t make any difference in the taste of a pizza crust, but I am not convinced on that, at least from the times I have used cake yeast.  The Pepe’s clone made with the Better for Bread flour was just a little less crisp on the bottom crust.  I never thought a NY style pizza made with just KAAP, cake yeast and salt would turn out so well before this thread. The higher TF also worked out well. I know you have tried out many different formulations for NY style pizza, but did you ever just use these combinations in a NY style pizza?  If you did, what did you think of the taste of the crust?

I am still undecided if I would like to use a Pepe’s clone or modified one for market.  Do you know of a way to modify one of your Pepe’s clones formulations to get better oven spring?  That is the only part I really don’t like about a Pepe’s clone pizza for market.  Would I just up the hydration and lower the amount of cake yeast or IDY for a one day cold ferment?

You did a great job in cloning the Pepe’s frozen dough!  I really don’t think an ordinary person would be able to tell the difference in using a Pepe’s frozen dough ball or using one of your last two formulations in making a Pepe’s clone pizza.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I never thought a NY style pizza made with just KAAP, cake yeast and salt would turn out so well before this thread. The higher TF also worked out well. I know you have tried out many different formulations for NY style pizza, but did you ever just use these combinations in a NY style pizza?  If you did, what did you think of the taste of the crust?

Some time ago, I tried making Lehmann NY style pizzas using all-purpose flour. I finally concluded that I wanted something with more crust color and flavor and a better texture. Eventually, I came up with something that I did like, but to do so I had to use vital wheat gluten and dairy whey. I described such a pizza at Reply 205 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg15669.html#msg15669. At the time, the expanded dough calculating tool, which has entries for vital wheat gluten and whey, and the Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://tools.foodsim.com/ did not exist. Today, I would use both of those tools to come up with a more accurate dough formulation with a presentation more along the lines produced using the expanded dough calculating tool.

I am still undecided if I would like to use a Pepe’s clone or modified one for market.  Do you know of a way to modify one of your Pepe’s clones formulations to get better oven spring?  That is the only part I really don’t like about a Pepe’s clone pizza for market.  Would I just up the hydration and lower the amount of cake yeast or IDY for a one day cold ferment?

Yes, you would increase the hydration to a value that is equivalent to the rated absorption value of the flour, and maybe a couple of percent more but not so much as to encourage sticking to the peel. And you would reduce the amount of yeast for a one-day cold fermentation. However, making these changes will take the dough formulations out of the realm of a Pepe's dough. For example, the total amount of water in relation to the final dough weight will no longer be 45.1%.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Some time ago, I tried making Lehmann NY style pizzas using all-purpose flour. I finally concluded that I wanted something with more crust color and flavor and a better texture. Eventually, I came up with something that I did like, but to do so I had to use vital wheat gluten and dairy whey. I described such a pizza at Reply 205 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,576.msg15669.html#msg15669. At the time, the expanded dough calculating tool, which has entries for vital wheat gluten and whey, and the Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://tools.foodsim.com/ did not exist. Today, I would use both of those tools to come up with a more accurate dough formulation with a presentation more along the lines produced using the expanded dough calculating tool.

Yes, you would increase the hydration to a value that is equivalent to the rated absorption value of the flour, and maybe a couple of percent more but not so much as to encourage sticking to the peel. And you would reduce the amount of yeast for a one-day cold fermentation. However, making these changes will take the dough formulations out of the realm of a Pepe's dough. For example, the total amount of water in relation to the final dough weight will no longer be 45.1%.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the link where you used AP flour in combination with VWG and dairy whey.  The pizza posted in your link looked very good!

I will think about one more experiment using a higher hydration and reducing the yeast for a one day cold fermentation.  I can understand doing that will take the formulation out of the Pepe’s realm.  I probably will use Better for Bread flour.

Norma

[TXCraig1]

Norma,

Did you happen to ask Ralph about the carbohydrate quantity question? I asked Walmart a couple of times. I didn't think I was going to get a response, and then yesterday I got an email from Ralph saying he was working on it.

CL

[norma427]

Norma,

Did you happen to ask Ralph about the carbohydrate quantity question? I asked Walmart a couple of times. I didn't think I was going to get a response, and then yesterday I got an email from Ralph saying he was working on it.

CL

Craig,

I did talk to Ralph about the carbohydrate value.  I posted about that at Reply 264 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg175135.html#msg175135 You sure are inventive talking to Wal-Mart a few times about the carbohydrate value on the Pepe’s dough balls.  I wonder how Wal-Mart got a hold of Ralph when they couldn’t even give me a phone number.  All they gave me was an address.  I will be interested to hear if Ralph gets back to you.

BTW, the first time I talked to Ralph he did say there was a distribution center in Texas that carries the Pepe’s dough balls.  You might want to ask him about that if you talk to him again.

Thanks for you help! 

Norma

[TXCraig1]

I missed that post, but as you and Pete noted, his response does not make sense.

CL

[TXCraig1]

I think the most likely answer to the carbohydrate mystery is that the nutritional analysis on the Pepe's package is wrong. I bet it is 26g not 36g. To be 36g, the dough would be something on the order of 10% HR. at 55% HR, it falls right in at 26g carbohydrates.

Norma, as I mentioned yesterday, I sent a note to Walmart suggesting that the Pepe's nutritional analysis might be incorrect with respect to carbohydrates. I got an email from Ralph a couple days ago that said "... After an initial investigation, it appears that you were correct. The carbohydrates on the current package do in fact appear to be stated higher than they should be. I currently have a 3rd party agency conducting a nutritional analysis of this product..."

I'l let you know what else I hear.

CL

[norma427]

Norma, as I mentioned yesterday, I sent a note to Walmart suggesting that the Pepe's nutritional analysis might be incorrect with respect to carbohydrates. I got an email from Ralph a couple days ago that said "... After an initial investigation, it appears that you were correct. The carbohydrates on the current package do in fact appear to be stated higher than they should be. I currently have a 3rd party agency conducting a nutritional analysis of this product..."

I'l let you know what else I hear.

CL

Craig,

Thanks so much for posting your follow up email from Ralph.  I am really interested in what the 3rd party agency finally comes up with in the final analysis of the Pepe’s dough balls.  I saw that email from Ralph yesterday on your cell phone.  Thanks for showing me the email. 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Craig and Norma,

The other day, out of curiosity, I used the nutrition calculator at the nutritiondata.self.com website at http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to come up with the Nutrition Facts for the Pepe 2.0 clone dough formulation. For those who are interested in these sort of things, one must register at the site to be able to use the nutrition calculator. I am quite certain that SelfNutritionData uses the USDA database (at http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/) that member November brought to my attention some time ago. That is a good database but there are quite a few food ingredients that are not in the database and often the ones that are are of a generic nature. For example, I used a generic bread flour for my purposes.

The Nutrition Facts for Pepe 2.0 are summarized as follows:

Serving size is 1/8th of the total recipe, or 56 grams
Calories: 126
Total Fat 1g
  Saturated Fat 0g
  Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 301mg
Total Carbohydrates 25g
   Dietary Fiber 1g
   Sugars 0g
Protein 4g

What I found especially interesting is the total calories. If one takes the difference between the 36 grams of carbohydrates listed on the Pepe's label (shown at Reply 21 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg171172.html#msg171172), subtract 25 from that (from the above Nutrition Facts), and multiply the difference, that is, 11, by 4 (4 calories per gram for carbohydrates), we get 44. Add the 44 calories to the 126 grams from the above Nutrition Facts, and what do we get? 170 calories--the same as on the Pepe's label. That leads me to believe that the calories information on the Pepe's label is also incorrect.

The sodium content in the above Nutrition Facts is lower than on the Pepe's label but we lowered the salt level intentionally. The sugars in the above Nutrition Facts is shown at 0, but that might be because of the particular flour that I selected from the USDA database, or else it was rounded to 0 because the amount was small enough to call it 0. If Pepe's is using a flour that has a bit more natural sugars, that could also explain the difference. Sugars in flours tend to run from about 1-1.3 grams per hundred grams of flour.

Ralph must be scratching his head and wondering what the heck is going on, with two different people from two different directions raising questions about the Pepe's carbohydrate count . Whoever pays any attention to that kind of stuff?

Peter

[norma427]

Craig and Norma,

The other day, out of curiosity, I used the nutrition calculator at the nutritiondata.self.com website at http://nutritiondata.self.com/ to come up with the Nutrition Facts for the Pepe 2.0 clone dough formulation. For those who are interested in these sort of things, one must register at the site to be able to use the nutrition calculator. I am quite certain that SelfNutritionData uses the USDA database (at http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/) that member November brought to my attention some time ago. That is a good database but there are quite a few food ingredients that are not in the database and often the ones that are are of a generic nature. For example, I used a generic bread flour for my purposes.

The Nutrition Facts for Pepe 2.0 are summarized as follows:

Serving size is 1/8th of the total recipe, or 56 grams
Calories: 126
Total Fat 1g
  Saturated Fat 0g
  Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 301mg
Total Carbohydrates 25g
   Dietary Fiber 1g
   Sugars 0g
Protein 4g

What I found especially interesting is the total calories. If one takes the difference between the 36 grams of carbohydrates listed on the Pepe's label (shown at Reply 21 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17632.msg171172.html#msg171172), subtract 25 from that (from the above Nutrition Facts), and multiply the difference, that is, 11, by 4 (4 calories per gram for carbohydrates), we get 44. Add the 44 calories to the 126 grams from the above Nutrition Facts, and what do we get? 170 calories--the same as on the Pepe's label. That leads me to believe that the calories information on the Pepe's label is also incorrect.

The sodium content in the above Nutrition Facts is lower than on the Pepe's label but we lowered the salt level intentionally. The sugars in the above Nutrition Facts is shown at 0, but that might be because of the particular flour that I selected from the USDA database, or else it was rounded to 0 because the amount was small enough to call it 0. If Pepe's is using a flour that has a bit more natural sugars, that could also explain the difference. Sugars in flours tend to run from about 1-1.3 grams per hundred grams of flour.

Ralph must be scratching his head and wondering what the heck is going on, with two different people from two different directions raising questions about the Pepe's carbohydrate count . Whoever pays any attention to that kind of stuff?

Peter

Peter,

I know your curiosity usually gets you studying different ways to understand various ways to do things.  Interesting to hear you think the SelfNutritionData website uses the USDA database to come up with data.
Good to also see what you found that was interesting was the total calories, and you also believe the calories information on the Pepe’s label is also incorrect.  I didn’t know before that different flours have different sugar amounts, but can understand that.  Good work Peter!

I can also imagine Ralph is scratching his head and wondering why two different people would wonder so much about his Nutrition Facts.  I would like to see you also asking Ralph questions.  He would be totally blow away by you and Craig.  I sure don’t know, but think only on Pizzamaking.com there are so many talented members that always have questions about something like has been posted on this thread and other reverse engineered threads. 

Did you also use the SelfNutrionData website before to help clone other doughs?

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Did you also use the SelfNutrionData website before to help clone other doughs?

Norma,

Actually, yes. While I haven't used the nutrition calculator for design purposes, I did run the numbers for one of the MM clone doughs through the SelfNutritionData nutrition calculator. However, one of the problems I encountered is that the database does not include high-gluten flour or one with around 14-14.2% protein. What was nice was that many of my numbers were in the ballpark. At some point, I may go back to the drawing board and try to tweak what I have done thus far in terms of quantities of ingredients. I will then run those numbers through the nutrition calculator.

I think the nutrition calculator is a useful tool to use in relation to the types of reverse engineering projects we have been conducting. It is an especially good tool for a dough such as the Pepe's dough because the Pepe's dough is unbaked and you don't have to worry about the effects on ingredients of baking. There are still limitations because of the incomplete database but that is the best we have for the moment.

Craig and I came to the same conclusions but from somewhat different directions. I knew that the Pepe's carbohydrate numbers didn't compute and were off the charts but Craig figured out where the error was and what might be the correct carbohydrate values. The SelfNutritionData nutrition calculation gave credence to Craig's number. Yet, it will still be interesting to find out what the new Pepe's carbohydrate value will be. Maybe there is something else we don't know about.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Actually, yes. While I haven't used the nutrition calculator for design purposes, I did run the numbers for one of the MM clone doughs through the SelfNutritionData nutrition calculator. However, one of the problems I encountered is that the database does not include high-gluten flour or one with around 14-14.2% protein. What was nice was that many of my numbers were in the ballpark. At some point, I may go back to the drawing board and try to tweak what I have done thus far in terms of quantities of ingredients. I will then run those numbers through the nutrition calculator.

I think the nutrition calculator is a useful tool to use in relation to the types of reverse engineering projects we have been conducting. It is an especially good tool for a dough such as the Pepe's dough because the Pepe's dough is unbaked and you don't have to worry about the effects on ingredients of baking. There are still limitations because of the incomplete database but that is the best we have for the moment.

Craig and I came to the same conclusions but from somewhat different directions. I knew that the Pepe's carbohydrate numbers didn't compute and were off the charts but Craig figured out where the error was and what might be the correct carbohydrate values. The SelfNutritionData nutrition calculation gave credence to Craig's number. Yet, it will still be interesting to find out what the new Pepe's carbohydrate value will be. Maybe there is something else we don't know about.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for posting that you did use the SelfNutritionData nutrition calculator before for the MM thread.  Even is one of the problems was that the database didn’t include high-gluten flour it was nice that your numbers were in the ballpark.  Good to hear you think the nutrition calculator is a useful tool in relation to types of reverse engineering projects we have been conducting.  I can understand it especially be a good tool for dough such as Pepe’s dough because the Pepe’s dough and is unbaked.  There is no need to worry about dressings or about the effects of baking.  I also can understand the database is limited because of the incomplete database.  You also have other ways of checking your calculations though. It will still be interesting to find out what the new Pepe’s carbohydrate value is.  I agree, maybe that is something else we don’t know.

Interesting that Craig and you came to the same conclusions, but from different directions. 

I might test the one frozen dough ball from Sal’s for Tuesday that Jeff and Mark gave me.  Should I also include that dough ball on this thread if I have time to do that experiment? 

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I might test the one frozen dough ball from Sal’s for Tuesday that Jeff and Mark gave me.  Should I also include that dough ball on this thread if I have time to do that experiment? 

Norma,

Since there has already been a fair amount of discussion of the Sal's dough and it is also a frozen dough, I would post the results in this thread.

Peter

[norma427]

I removed the Papa Sal’s frozen dough ball from the freezer this afternoon.  I weighed it and the Papa Sal’s frozen dough ball weighed 478 grams. Then the Papa Sal’s dough ball was oiled and put into a plastic container to defrost until Tuesday.

Norma

[norma427]

Norma