Weird white spots on my deep dish doughball?

[pythonic]

Nate,

Another thought that occurred to me is that maybe the oil prevented the flour from being properly and fully hydrated, resulting in little pockets of flour surrounded or trapped by oil. However, if such were the case, I would think that if you pinched the white spots you would see either raw flour or flour soaked or wetted by oil.

Peter

I scraped at it with a butter knife but I didn't see any raw flour.  I think it's just soaked with oil.

[Pete-zza]

Ceresota all purpose and gold medal better for bread flour was used.

Nate,

As you can see from the Master gluten mass list at Reply 50 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18075.msg177835.html#msg177835, the Ceresota all-purpose flour has less gluten forming proteins than the Better for Bread flour, by enough to possibly affect the performance of the two flours in the mix/knead stage. Normally, one might avoid the type of problem you experienced by hydrating the flour before adding the oil, but that might result in too much gluten development and result in a bread-like dough rather than a biscuit-like dough. I think this is one of those cases where you try to emulate a pie crust dough than a bread dough.

Peter

[pythonic]

Nate,

As you can see from the Master gluten mass list at Reply 50 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,18075.msg177835.html#msg177835, the Ceresota all-purpose flour has less gluten forming proteins than the Better for Bread flour, by enough to possibly affect the performance of the two flours in the mix/knead stage. Normally, one might avoid the type of problem you experienced by hydrating the flour before adding the oil, but that might result in too much gluten development and result in a bread-like dough rather than a biscuit-like dough. I think this is one of those cases where you try to emulate a pie crust dough than a bread dough.

Peter

Peter,

I forgot to mention I used KAAP for my 1st attempt and not ceresota.  Im thinking it must be in correlation of the bread flour since I'm not getting these results using 100% all purpose.

[Pete-zza]

I forgot to mention I used KAAP for my 1st attempt and not ceresota.  Again it has to be in correlation of the bread flour since I'm not getting these results using 100% all purpose.

Nate,

Even though the KAAP is an all-purpose flour, it has a protein content and gluten content that approaches the protein content and gluten content of some bread flours, including the Better for Bread flour. The wheat grains used to mill the two flours are not the same but I wouldn't think that that would materially affect the outcome. I forgot that you used a 50/50 blend of flours but, even taking that into account, which would only slightly increase the required hydration for the blend, I think what you experienced was just a case of undermixing the dough. And that undermixing was appropriate in my opinion for a deep-dish dough. Sometime you might try using all all-purpose flour again to see if you end up with a spot-free dough again.

Peter

[pythonic]

Nate,

Even though the KAAP is an all-purpose flour, it has a protein content and gluten content that approaches the protein content and gluten content of some bread flours, including the Better for Bread flour. The wheat grains used to mill the two flours are not the same but I wouldn't think that that would materially affect the outcome. I forgot that you used a 50/50 blend of flours but, even taking that into account, which would only slightly increase the required hydration for the blend, I think what you experienced was just a case of undermixing the dough. And that undermixing was appropriate in my opinion for a deep-dish dough. Sometime you might try using all all-purpose flour again to see if you end up with a spot-free dough again.

Peter

Peter,

I have an all purpose sitting on the counter as we speak and it's spot free.

[Pete-zza]

I have an all purpose sitting on the counter as we speak and it's spot free.

Nate,

Is the all-purpose dough before or after refrigerating?

BTW, are you using a scale?

Peter

[pythonic]

Nate,

Is the all-purpose dough before or after refrigerating?

BTW, are you using a scale?

Peter

After refrigeration, yes using a scale.

[Pete-zza]

Nate,

So, it looks like you get the spotting problem only when using bread flour, either alone or as part of a blend. If that is correct, you might try increasing the hydration the next time you use bread flour in any form, and try to keep all of the preparation steps and times the same as when you have made the all-purpose flour versions. Another possibility is to try a different bread flour, such as the King Arthur bread flour, to see if the problem persists.

Peter

[The Dough Doctor]

Phytonic;
What kind/type of yeast are you using? From the photo that you provided, it appears that the spots are all about the same size. If flour or fat were the culprit, I would expect to see a more random size pattern formed, but because of the uniformity maybe we need to be looking at the yeast, especially if it is ADY or IDY, and how it is added.
We make a VERY undermixed Chicago cracker type crust that resembles a pie dough rather than a pizza dough (just 45 to 60-seconds of mixing time) In this dough we see a lot of flour lumps but they have a very randon size distribution and they are hard when squeezed, and when broken, you can identify the flour, this is why I am leaning away from the flour in this case. However, it might be dried dough pieces from a surface that the dough was scraped off of at some point, just a thought.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor