Author Topic: The Dough Doctor's cracker fail...well almost. (Read 1697 times)

nick57 · « **on:** April 01, 2012, 02:46:50 PM »

After reading "The Dough Doctor's Cracker" by Fazzari, I tried my hand at it again. It was my best attempt so far, you can see the results on his thread. So I decided to try it again, and do it exactly like I did it the last time. Well, things did not turn out the same for sure. It turned into a disaster, but in the end the pizza came out pretty edible after all. I weighed all the ingredients using a digital scale set to grams. The dough did not hydrate like it did the last time. Not sure if it was the humidity, it was pretty low as compared to last time. I have text and photos for each step of the process. I started by using the proportions listed below.

The recipe:
flour (used KABF) 100%
water 45
salt 2
yeast .75
oil 4.00

This is what the dough looked like after 90 seconds in the KA mixer.

nick57 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 01, 2012, 02:50:32 PM »

I have removed the dough from the bowl, and getting ready to shape it. It looks the same as the last time. So far so good.

nick57 · « **Reply #2 on:** April 01, 2012, 02:52:14 PM »

After working it for a couple of minutes I got it to this shape. It still looks like last time. Things are going well. Ha!

nick57 · « **Reply #3 on:** April 01, 2012, 02:54:25 PM »

I got the dough to hold together enough to place it in the bowl. I did lightly mist it with oil to keep the skin from drying out.

nick57 · « **Reply #4 on:** April 01, 2012, 02:57:11 PM »

This is after 24 hours in the fridge. It's alive, we have brains. Things still looking good for a great pizza. I let the dough sit on the counter to warm up, about 2.5 hours.

nick57 · « **Reply #5 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:12:18 PM »

Pizza control.... We have a problem!
The brains looked good as they have in the past. So, when I started rolling the dough I noticed some areas that had not hydrated and the dough was dry and crumbly. This was a first for me, all the times in the past the dough had hydrated completely. I used the same technique to shape the ball, and mixed in the same fashion. Maybe I did not work the dough enough by hand long enough to thoroughly mix the moisture into the flour. As you can tell the skin is a mess. Too thin in some areas and elastic, and in others, dry and stiff. I was going to toss the skin but thought it would be fun to see how bad it would turn out. In the center of the skin you can see dry flour, and cracks that have dry flour in them. I did take a water mister, and spray those areas to moisten the dry flour. If you look at the top right, you can see some of dry flour that was at the edge of the skin when I had finished rolling it out.

nick57 · « **Reply #6 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:20:31 PM »

I par baked the skin for 2 minutes and removed it from the pan. Looks almost OK, considering what it looked like before cooking. If you look closely, you can still see dry flour. It's the whiter areas on the skin.

nick57 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:24:19 PM »

I placed the skin on the stone for three more minutes to finish the par bake. It got the dreaded brown spots. I should have kept an eye on it, and maybe rotated it once. Still amazed how it looks.

nick57 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:27:13 PM »

My toppings were Mozz, Italian sausage, mushrooms, and black olives. No red sauce like last time, just brushed the skin with olive oil. Amazing how the toppings make the pie look good. I let the skin cool for 10 minutes before topping it. The skin got crisper as it cooled.

nick57 · « **Reply #9 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:30:13 PM »

I cooked the pie for 10 minutes and removed from the oven. The dough browned nicely, and the pie looked pretty good.

nick57 · « **Reply #10 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:35:11 PM »

I sliced half the pizza into wedges. The finished product looks almost like the last pie. It tasted pretty close to the last pie I made. We could not taste any raw flour. It was nice and crispy. Not as good as my last pie, but I can't believe that the worst pizza dough I ever made could still be edible. Everything that could go wrong did, and It was still better than the last commercial pizza I purchased.

nick57 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:38:01 PM »

It's pretty thin as you can see by this side shot. Not as much lamination, and bubbling as in the last pie.

nick57 · « **Reply #12 on:** April 01, 2012, 03:45:38 PM »

The bottom browned nicely without burning. If you look closely, you can see specks of flour in the crust that never hydrated. They are the small white spots. I can't believe we did not taste it.
What do you guys think? Not enough mixing of the flour. Maybe the humidity? I think next time I will lightly spritz any dry crumbs in the dough before I form it into a ball. Even though everything went wrong, it was still a good pizza, and we all thought it tasted good. And this is no April fools joke. I still can't believe it tuned out OK. I'm glad I did not toss it.

toddster63 · « **Reply #13 on:** April 01, 2012, 10:40:47 PM »

Looks GRRREAT, Nick! Very CRACKer-eeee. Nice layers. Yummy combo of toppings too.

Papageorgio · « **Reply #14 on:** April 02, 2012, 11:50:50 AM »

Pie looks great!

I found a little more hydration to ease the process. Try it, experiment, what harm could it do? I also found that pre-bake took away the flavor and made the dough too dry and flavorless. Crunchy but didn't add any flavor. I also discovered that by placing the pizza stone low in the oven made the stone hotter. (closer to the heating element) I bake at 485. I do open the oven once or twice to let out steam and that causes the heating element to come on and keeps the stone hot.

keep up the good work.

norma427 · « **Reply #15 on:** April 02, 2012, 08:21:34 PM »

Nick,

Very nice!

I love the look of the slices.

Norma

BTB · « **Reply #16 on:** April 07, 2012, 11:26:36 AM »

I, too, recently checked off my bucket list and dived into making a thin crust pizza along the lines indicated above and that of John's at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,17996.0.html (only I mix by hand). I made a 14" thin crust (but put in 15" in the dough tool to account for bowl residue), but deviated only to the extent of adding a half of teaspoon of sugar into the formulation. I docked the very thin dough skin in my special PSTK pan and par baked the crust for about 2 minutes at around 475 degrees F on the next to the bottom oven rack. Then dressed and baked till the pizza was nice and browned.

Some pix of the process . . .

BTB · « **Reply #17 on:** April 07, 2012, 11:27:42 AM »

Further pix of the process . . .

BTB · « **Reply #18 on:** April 07, 2012, 11:28:46 AM »

Pizza was very good, but not great. I'm trying to think in my mind what things I could have done better. Crust was soft but not with a little bit of crunch and other attributes that I would have liked to have experienced. I will work further on this style/technique to hopefully improve on my first attempt with it.

--BTB

Edit - And my wife told me "more cheese next time."

nick57 · « **Reply #19 on:** April 07, 2012, 02:16:32 PM »

Thanks for the kind comments. I still can't believe that disaster of a skin turned out so good. Go figure. BTB's pie looks delicious. I was thinking about mixing the dough by hand. Seems like it would be gentler on the dough than using the KA mixer. Looking at BTB's pizza makes me very hungry. That's the main problem with this technique, I have to start the dough the day before I want it. But, a good pizza is worth the wait. I'm going to try this again next week, and mix by hand this time. I will make sure to spritz any dry crumbs in the dough before I form it into a ball for rising.