Two Bill’s pizza..dough and Carmelina Sauce..great!

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Thanks for reminding me of the other “pizza genius”, Dom DeMarco of DiFara’s.  I know Dom has also done something like Buddy’s pizza in that he uses what is an emergency dough.  I didn’t know though that he once showed you a drawer or something similar under his oven where he kept the emergency dough balls warm and cozy, like I am trying to do in the Hatco Unit.  I wonder how long his dough balls stayed in the drawer.  Did you taste any byproducts of fermentation in Dom’s crust, or were the toppings the star of the pizza you tried something like Buddy’s pizza?

My recollection is that the dough at DiFara's was made throughout the day, much as Buddy's does. I don't recall discussing how long the dough balls were held in the drawer. As far as the crust flavors were concerned, we made the mistake of ordering a lot of vegetable toppings and, as a result, the crust was on the soggy side. I don't recall that there were a lot of crust flavors per se.

I also looked on the web for higher hydration Sicilian doughs without any salt, but didn’t find any.

I wouldn't expect that you would find many Sicilian doughs without salt, at least in the U.S., where people crave salt in their bread products. As mentioned previously in the context of the Chicago deep-dish doughs, there are very few such doughs that use no salt but they are not completely unheard of. According to the Slice article at http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/05/detroit-the-guerra-legacy-lives-on-at-cloverleaf.html, allegedly Gus Guerra, the founder of Buddy's, got the idea for the Sicilian style pizza from his Sicilian mother-in-law. That tidbit of information prompted me to do some searching for Sicilian bread products that call for no salt. I found examples for salt-free Sicilian bread and focaccia and pizza dough at http://www.siciliancookingplus.com/Bread-Making.html, http://sicilyscene.blogspot.com/2008/07/focaccia.html and http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1724529. I did not find examples of high-hydration Sicilian pizza doughs so I can't point to something that Gus Guerra might have gotten from his Sicilian mother-in-law. On this point, I have always tended to be suspicious of famous and successful Italian pizza operators who claim that their dough recipes came from Italy, usually a parent or some other family member. I recall reading about such claims at Papa Gino's (its predecessor), Home Run Inn, Giordano's and Jets, just to cite the ones off the top of my head.

My view on salt for the Buddy's clones is to use it if desired. Maybe one day we will learn whether Buddy's uses salt in its dough and whether its Nutrition information reflects such use.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,
My recollection is that the dough at DiFara's was made throughout the day, much as Buddy's does. I don't recall discussing how long the dough balls were held in the drawer. As far as the crust flavors were concerned, we made the mistake of ordering a lot of vegetable toppings and, as a result, the crust was on the soggy side. I don't recall that there were a lot of crust flavors per se.
I wouldn't expect that you would find many Sicilian doughs without salt, at least in the U.S., where people crave salt in their bread products. As mentioned previously in the context of the Chicago deep-dish doughs, there are very few such doughs that use no salt but they are not completely unheard of. According to the Slice article at http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2012/05/detroit-the-guerra-legacy-lives-on-at-cloverleaf.html, allegedly Gus Guerra, the founder of Buddy's, got the idea for the Sicilian style pizza from his Sicilian mother-in-law. That tidbit of information prompted me to do some searching for Sicilian bread products that call for no salt. I found examples for salt-free Sicilian bread and focaccia and pizza dough at http://www.siciliancookingplus.com/Bread-Making.html, http://sicilyscene.blogspot.com/2008/07/focaccia.html and http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1724529. I did not find examples of high-hydration Sicilian pizza doughs so I can't point to something that Gus Guerra might have gotten from his Sicilian mother-in-law. On this point, I have always tended to be suspicious of famous and successful Italian pizza operators who claim that their dough recipes came from Italy, usually a parent or some other family member. I recall reading about such claims at Papa Gino's (its predecessor), Home Run Inn, Giordano's and Jets, just to cite the ones off the top of my head.

My view on salt for the Buddy's clones is to use it if desired. Maybe one day we will learn whether Buddy's uses salt in its dough and whether its Nutrition information reflects such use.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for telling me about the pizza you had at DiFara’s and what your recollection is of how the dough is made and how the crust tasted.  I never tasted a DiFara’s pizza, but hope someday I can.  I almost got to taste one, but then my daughter and her friends wouldn’t stay long enough at DiFara’s to purchase any for me. 

I saw Gus Guerra said he got the idea for the Sicilian pizza from his Sicilian mother-in-law.  Thanks for the links to where you found some examples of salt-free Sicilian bread, focaccia and pizza dough.  I am also suspicious of almost any Italian pizza operators that say they learned how to make their doughs from someone in Italy, unless the pizzas are very good.  I know many local pizzerias that the owners are Italian and they have told me they got their dough recipes from way back in Italy because they is where there relatives live and many of the pizzeria operators also lived in Italy at one time.  I sure wouldn’t say anything special about their crusts on their pizza either, because I have found them to be rather bland since I joined this forum and learned more about making pizza.  At one time I did think some of their pizzas were really special.   

Thanks for telling me your view on to use salt or not in my Buddy‘s clones. 

Norma

[norma427]

I really don’t think this post will tell much of anything, but am going to post it anyway.  I was looking at the waybackmachine some more.

This is a sample menu from the waybackmachine on Buddy’s menu on 2003.  It states in the menu why the pepperoni is placed under the cheese. http://web.archive.org/web/20021204205818/http://buddyspizza.com/menu.htm

Picture blown-up of how thick Buddy’s pizza looked years ago and also a picture blown-up from “Sometimes you just Need Some Buddy’s from a new campaign Buddy‘s started then I think in 2002, or even by 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/20021206094711/http://buddyspizza.com/buddysgivesback.htm

Another picture of Buddy’s pizza back in 2001 against the buildings. http://web.archive.org/web/20010301201221/http://www.buddyspizza.com/

More pictures on the right of one of Buddy’s advertising campaigns in 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050921030553/http://www.buddyspizza.com/

If the top pictures (old pictures) on Buddy’s website are looked at the pies did look thinner year ago at Buddy‘s, if my eyes aren‘t deceiving me.  I think, but really don’t know, that Buddy’s did change their sizes of their dough balls over the years, or something else happened.

http://web.archive.org/web/20101012142327/http://www.buddyspizza.com/index.asp

I also went on the waybackmachine and look at http://louispizza.net/  The picture at the top of the page at http://web.archive.org/web/20090313033242/http://louispizza.net/ doesn’t look that thick either.  That is the same picture Loui’s has on their webpage now, but with more pictures added

I also went back on the waybackmachine to http://www.shieldspizza.com/ but couldn‘t find much.

I think the article about Detroit's Iconic Eateries Flourish In Vanishing Neighborhoods
By Allan Lengel is interesting in how it has an article about Buddy’s Pizza if you scroll down. http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/3112/detroit_s_iconic_eateries_flourish_in_vanishing_neighborhoods  By reading that article it can be seen how Buddy’s original neighborhood had better days.

Edit:  I think the new campaign started in 1999.
Norma

[norma427]

It was only a little over 50 degrees at market today and even after I had my small heater on for a while it still only brought the temperature up at market a couple of degrees, so to me it was cold today at market, because I didn’t put on any heavier clothes and sure couldn’t keep my coat on.  Of course then my flour and water were colder than last week.

I purchased a 50 lb. bag of the Occident flour this morning because my 25 lb. bag was almost gone.  I really don’t think my other digital thermometer at market is broken, but I need to get a battery to see if that will fix it. I took the old battery out today and it looks rusted, so hopefully the thermometer will work after I purchase a new battery. I took my home digital thermometer along today to take the final dough temperature.  I wanted to see how a fairly normal final dough temperature would do.  It can be seen in the three pictures with the digital thermometer how fast the temperature dropped in a matter of a few minutes from it being colder at market.  The dough mixed well and balled well.  I placed poppy seeds on one dough ball in the steel pan to see how much it ferments until tomorrow morning.  I forgot scan the print out sheet on my printer from the expanded dough calculation tool, so I just took a picture of it.  The dough balls for the 8”x10” steel pans were scaled to 9.5 ounces and for the large steel pan to 18 ounces.  I also received 3 more small steel pans Saturday from Detroit Style Pizza Co. and 1 larger steel pan.

Hopefully things will go well tomorrow with the Buddy’s clone dough formulation I decided to try, the tempering and the final pizzas.

Jeff, I also opened up the Weyauwega aged brick and the mild brick cheeses you sent me to taste them today and the aged brick cheese did smell kind of stinky, but it tasted very good.   It wasn’t too strong for me and sure didn’t taste anything like Limburger cheese.  The mild brick also was very good.  I wonder why the aged brick is creamier though.  I am anxious to try both brick cheeses tomorrow.

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Just wanted to post that there wasn’t problems with sag under the sauce today and two Buddy’s style clone pizzas were made by 10:35 AM this morning.  I sure don’t know what the heck changed, but I was glad today.  Both of these pizzas had the sauce put on before the bake.  One was a cheese and sauce and the other was the coarse grind pepperoni put under the cheese and sauce.

Norma

[Chicago Bob]

Fab Norma!! 

[norma427]

Fab Norma!! 

Thanks Bob, things just seemed to go much better today.

Norma

[norma427]

The Buddy’s clone tempering of the dough and the final pizzas went much better yesterday.  It seems like about 45-60 minutes in the Hatco Unit is about the best tempering time so far.  The temperature of the Hatco Unit was between about 85-95 degrees F.  I didn’t change the temperature on the Hatco Unit, but watched how the temperature fluctuates.  It seems like when tempering the dough in a steel pan for a lot longer, the dough seems almost overproofed, but will have to watch that more. 

I also found the Hatco Unit is good for tempering the doughs in the steels pans for Greek style pizza.  A couple that are regular customers came and wanted to purchase a whole Greek pizza about 6:00 PM last evening and along with tempering the dough in the steel pan in the Hatco Unit for about 25 minutes, the Greek pizza was made from start to finish in about 45 minutes.  I also tried the Hatco Unit for tempering cold (right of the pizza prep fridge) regular NY style dough balls yesterday and in about 15 minutes they are warmed up enough to make them really easy to open.  I don’t know why I didn’t think of using the Hatco Unit for them before.  I guess I will always have those doh moments.   

The Buddy’s clone pizza was sauce yesterday a little differently.  I didn’t sauce in exactly two or three racing stripes, but more or less dropped the sauce in different places, except in the one Buddy’s clone pizza.  That method seems to work better in the sag issue I had.  The one dough ball in the steel pan seemed like it was tempered too long and then it had hills and valleys in the height of the top of the pizza, but the crumb didn’t sag from the addition of the sauce.  I still have a lot to learn about tempering this style of dough and how to apply different dressings, but overall it went better yesterday.  Since Steve and I noticed on different Buddy’s clones we have tried that if the pepperoni is put under the cheese it really can’t be tasted, so both of us decided it is better to put the pepperoni on top of the pizza.  I found out last week if the pepperoni is put on top right away, the pepperoni wants to brown too much, so the second pepperoni Buddy’s clone pizza yesterday was put on the pizza while the pizza still part way in the oven about 4 minutes from the final bake.  That seemed to work better.  The first pizza was dressed with the pepperoni under the cheese, but Steve and I both talked about that and concluded as why to dress these Buddy’s pepperoni clones that way if the pepperoni can’t really be tasted.  The bottom crusts are browning well and are crispy.  All the customers that purchased slices of the Buddy’s clone pizzas yesterday did really like the slices.  All the Buddy’s clone doughs were used up yesterday to make Buddy‘s clone pizzas.  The maintenance men and the old flea mill manager said these are the best pizzas they ever tasted. 

I also have to watch how I put the dough balls in the steel pan in the deli case.  My shelves on my deli case are slanting shelves, so some of the dough balls slid to the one side of the steel pan.  I need to put the one end of the steel pan on the ledge of the slating shelves so the dough balls will stay in the middle of the steel pans.  It also gets a little hairy trying to make 3 styles of pizzas at one time with only two people working.  I think my experimenting with different doughs and style of pizza is soon going to be very limited because I don’t see how I will have time to do those experiments.    I sure will miss those experiments, but this has been a fun journey. 

Rocco and his friend also stopped by again yesterday morning while I was busy.  Rocco comes ever few weeks to ask me about selling my small pizza stand to him.  He always says the pizzas look good.  He asked again yesterday morning if I would sell my pizza stand to him and I said to Rocco, then what would I do.  Rocco then said I could stay at home with my boyfriend.  I told Rocco I don’t have a boyfriend and I do really love making pizzas.  Rocco’s friend asked me if he should find a boyfriend for me and I said no.  Rocco asked me if I still have his phone number and I said yes I do.  I asked Rocco if he ever tried to make Detroit style pizzas and he said no.  Rocco has never tasted one of my pizzas.  My one friend across the aisle from me said he I ever sell my pizza stand to Rocco she is going to kill me because Rocco is so arrogant.  She always hears the conversations between me and Rocco.

I also think I am oiling my steel pans too much with Canola oil and will have to try less Canola oil next week. 

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

The first picture is the hills and valley Buddy's clone pizza.

Norma

[norma427]

I had ordered some frozen Casa Italian Style Meatballs from my food distributor and used them on the Pete-zza TexItaliano Buddy’s clone.  The sign that was just quickly made said green peppers, but red peppers were used.  The rest of the dressings on the sign were right.  Those flavors all combined together on the Pete-zza TexItaliano Buddy’s clone pizza were delicious and I wasn‘t the only one that had those thoughts.  I thought Peter needs a Buddy’s clone pizza named after him, since he has helped me so much on this thread.  I will be offering this pizza every week.  The Casa Italian Style Meatballs are very good when eaten plain or on the pizza.  The Italian meatballs were sliced and cheese was placed under and over the meatballs, then the other dressings were added.  The meatballs were heated in the oven first.

Jeff’s mild brick cheese was also used on the Pete-zza TexItaliano Buddy’s clone yesterday.  Jeff’s mild brick cheese was very good on this pizza and the mild brick cheese stretched well on the bake pizza.  The edges got browner from Jeff’s mild brick cheese but they sure didn’t taste browner.  I didn’t get to try out Jeff’s aged brick cheese because I ran out of dough balls.

I have to work on making better signs.  

Thanks so much Peter for helping me on this thread.  I wouldn't have come this far without your help.  

Norma  

[norma427]

Thanks so much Jeff for sending me the brick cheese to try.  The brick cheese was very good.  It was the only cheese I used on this pizza.

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

I also told Steve I wanted the name a pizza after him and asked him if he would come up with a name and dressings for a Buddy’s clone pizza.  Steve named his pizza Marco Pollo.  The Marco Pollo Buddy’s clone pizza was also very good.  Many customers stopped to say how good it looked.  I will let Steve post if he wants to in what dressings were used for his Marco Pollo Buddy’s clone pizza.  I didn’t know what kind of pizza Steve was going to come up with and he brought the extra dressings yesterday and we just used my dough and cheese blends.  When Steve wrote out his sign he mistakenly put Marco Polo on the sign, but the sign should have read Ev’s Marco Pollo.

Steve used the dough ball with the poppy seeds on to watch how that dough ball fermented.  The poppy seeds were measured at 9:30 AM and at 3:10 PM.  The dough ball was used about 5:30 PM to make Ev’s Marco Pollo Buddy’s clone pizza.  

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[jeff v]

Rocco sounds like quite a character, tell him he can start by buying some pizza!  I've enjoyed seeing how your Buddy's clones progressed. You and Peter did a really good job. Do you plan on offering them regularly?

[norma427]

Rocco sounds like quite a character, tell him he can start by buying some pizza!   I've enjoyed seeing how your Buddy's clones progressed. You and Peter did a really good job. Do you plan on offering them regularly?

Jeff,

Rocco is quite a character.    He has been bugging me to sell him my small pizza stand at market for a long while.  Rocco’s one buddy was supposed to open a pizza stand at the same spot where I am now, but something happened that he never opened it although he did have some of his equipment there for about 6 months.  He then stuck the market manager with all the costs of running water and electric to the stand.  Rocco does own a big pizzeria near Gettysburg, Pa., so it always wonders me why he wants my small stand.  Rocco told me one time he wanted it for his nephew and then told me another time he wanted to run it.  I ever offered to let him taste my pizza different times for free, but he would never taste it.  The other week he stopped by when I was really busy because Steve wasn’t there yet.  He said to me do you want me to put on a apron and come back there and sling some doughs and I said no.  

I know Peter did a great job in helping me with everything he suggested and told me to try in this thread.  

Yes, I do plan on offering the Buddy’s clones all the time.  

Thanks again for the brick cheeses you sent me to try!  

Norma

Edit:  This is Rocco's pizzeria. http://www.eatroccos.com/index.html