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

[Skee]

I don’t know what area you are in.  I guess if you are near Michigan then you might be able to purchase some of the brick cheese like they are using in the different Detroit style pizza businesses.

I'm in Austin, Texas, so probably can't get the brands you have available, but I'll look (haven't seen brick cheese in any store down here).  I'm trying a new Mozzarella on tomorrow's DS - can't recall the name off the top of my head, but they had both part skim and whole milk versions and the samples were very tasty.   

[norma427]

I'm in Austin, Texas, so probably can't get the brands you have available, but I'll look (haven't seen brick cheese in any store down here).  I'm trying a new Mozzarella on tomorrow's DS - can't recall the name off the top of my head, but they had both part skim and whole milk versions and the samples were very tasty.  

Britt,

Thanks for telling us what area you are in.  I really don’t have brick cheese available to me either unless I was sent samples of the brick cheeses, or purchased brick cheese online.  I don’t know if you want to add any mild cheddar, but when I used my foodservice mozzarellas they did brown well on the edges and gave about the same caramelized edges, but the mild white cheddar did give a better flavor on the edges and the whole pizzas for me in my Buddy’s clones.  I am not saying the one Buddy’s clone pizza with my two mozzarellas was bad, but it wasn’t as good as when mild white cheddar was used on the edges.

I hope you report back how you liked your mozzarellas when baked on a Detroit style of pizza.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I'm in Austin, Texas, so probably can't get the brands you have available, but I'll look (haven't seen brick cheese in any store down here).   

Britt,

As I noted at Reply 470 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21559.msg225267/topicseen.html#msg225267, one of the Central Markets in Austin (I think I called the one on Lamar) does sell brick cheese. You might call the other CM to see if they have the Widmer brick cheese, as does the CM Houston store.

Peter

[gschwim]

Gene,

When you start your own experiments I think it would be a very good idea to start a new thread. Not everyone is trying to emulate the Buddy's particular version of the Detroit style pizza, and not everyone has the same ingredients as used by Buddy's. And people are always looking out for new and different things. The reason why Norma and I tried to reverse engineer and clone the Buddy's dough is because people asked for it, starting with the Buddy's thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3783.0.html, which you started over six years ago. Of course, in Norma's case, she also wanted to try to make a credible version of the Detroit style pizza for sale at market.

Peter

Peter,

Has it really been six years??!!

I'm actually surprised, myself, that a thread called "Two Bill’s pizza..dough and Carmelina Sauce..great!" somehow became a sort of sister-thread to the "official" Buddy's Pizza thread, but not to worry.  In answering Norma's question about what formula I used, I wanted to distinguish between the parts I did deliberately (dough, butter-flavored Crisco), and those that were just ingredients I had on hand - i.e., because I was only working on the dough, I didn't care what went on top of it.

Going forward, if someone asks me a specific question about an ingredient or process, of course I'll answer, but I don't plan to post day-to-day experimental stuff, only, maybe, something that seems new.  I posted Reply 1078 because I don't think anyone tried a combination of my "modified Lahey method" and 00 flour.  Or at least, so I thought.  I was away for so long and am frankly astonished at how many replies got posted during my absence, not nearly enough time to read them all.

But if I do anything substantial, I'll start a new thread.

Gene

[Skee]

...one of the Central Markets in Austin (I think I called the one on Lamar) does sell brick cheese. You might call the other CM to see if they have the Widmer brick cheese, as does the CM Houston store...

Both the Austin stores are on Lamar, one south and one north, but when I asked about brick in the cheese departments neither store had any on hand.  Maybe they were just out at the time.   I'll try again and just ask for "Widmer" cheese and see what happens.

[Pete-zza]

Has it really been six years??!!

I'm actually surprised, myself, that a thread called "Two Bill’s pizza..dough and Carmelina Sauce..great!" somehow became a sort of sister-thread to the "official" Buddy's Pizza thread, but not to worry. 

Gene,

Six years is quite amazing. FYI, this thread did not start out as a further attempt to reverse engineer and clone the Buddy's dough and pizza. In fact, the thread started out on the General Pizza Making board. Norma had made a round pizza based on a recipe and tomatoes that she had gotten from a friend Bill in Trenton and using a sauce preparation method from Bill/SFNM (hence the two Bills). Norma liked the pizza very much but wanted to make a larger version using a rectangular pan. I volunteered to help her convert Trenton Bill's numbers for a round pizza to the numbers for a large rectangular pizza. It was in the course of doing this, along with further input from Trenton Bill, that we concluded that what he and Norma had made were basically clones of the Buddy's pizza, using a dough recipe that was cobbled together from ideas from the Buddy's thread. Rather than merging the two threads, and since Norma thought that she might want to make and sell Buddy's clones at market, we decided to make this thread the home for a commercial version of the Buddy pizza. We were then off to the races, and before we knew it, we were taking a fresh look at reverse engineering and cloning the Buddy's dough and pizza. What I found most interesting is that Buddy's didn't stand still over the past six years. They made many changes, and it was trying to identify those changes and and differences in their pizzas that took a lot of time and work to decipher.

Peter

[norma427]

I mixed the Buddy clone dough longer today and also did a few other things a little differently.  I did mix only with the flat beater and mixed on speeds 1, 2 and 3, but did mix on speed three longer than before.  The final dough temperature was 73.1 degrees F.  Until I cut, scaled, balled and oiled the dough balls it was longer than last week too.  One of the dough balls wasn’t oiled at all.  I also wanted to see how that goes without oiling a dough ball.   The Buddy’s clone dough did look like it had pretty much strength in the dough to me. There is one picture of that showing me stretching the dough.  I also oiled some of my steel pans with Canola oil and some with MFB shortening to see what will happen with that tomorrow.  I placed the steel pans with the one end of the steel pans on the deli case shelf raised lip, so the dough balls in the steel pans might not slide.

The two pictures of the dough in the mixer with the flat beater were the first picture was when the dough was only mixed on speed one for awhile and the second picture is after speed two and speed three were used.  The dough was finished being mixed in that picture.

The formulation is also in the one picture.

Norma

[norma427]

I also did grease one 8-square pan with MGB shortening.

Norma

[Tscarborough]

They look great!  What do your customers think of them?

[norma427]

They look great!  What do your customers think of them?

Tom,

Thank you for your kind comment.  So far my customers, stand holders, market managers and workers for market do really like the Buddy’s clones, but I don’t want to get to far ahead of myself because I am not really up to speed in making many pizzas of this style yet.  The Buddy’s clone pizzas are a lot different than making a NY style or a Greek pizza.  Because the dough (when tempered) seems so fragile in how it tempers (and if it tempers right), if I don’t get the tempering right then the Buddy’s clones don’t turn out right for me.  I think I still have a lot of experimenting to do with how to mix right, my formulation, the tempering times and other things.  At least it is winter here and tomorrow the weather isn’t suppose to be the best. Maybe it will give me more time to try and figure this all out.  

Norma  

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

Making multiple types of pizzas for sale on only one day a week strikes me as being immeasurably harder to do than if you had a full-time pizza place and sold pizzas every day of the week but with only one style. As you know, the pizza places that specialize in the Detroit style pizzas pretty much make only that style (although a few have been testing out related styles).

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

Making multiple types of pizzas for sale on only one day a week strikes me as being immeasurably harder to do than if you had a full-time pizza place and sold pizzas every day of the week but with only one style. As you know, the pizza places that specialize in the Detroit style pizzas pretty much make only that style (although a few have been testing out related styles).

Peter

Peter,

I also agree that making multiple types of pizzas that I only sell one day a week is much harder to do than if I had a full-time pizza place selling only one style of pizza.  Maybe, I will eventually get the Buddy’s clone style down right, but don’t know how long it will take. 

I do want to be the first pizza business (in our area) to be able to make a Buddy’s clone as well as I can.  We will all see if I fail, succeed, or drives myself nuts.  I sure don’t know of any other place around our area that offers Detroit style pizzas.

I dreamt about those darn Buddy’s clone pizzas the other night and I never dreamt about any pizza before. 

Norma

[gschwim]

Gene,

Six years is quite amazing. FYI, this thread did not start out as a further attempt to reverse engineer and clone the Buddy's dough and pizza. In fact, the thread started out on the General Pizza Making board. Norma had made a round pizza based on a recipe and tomatoes that she had gotten from a friend Bill in Trenton and using a sauce preparation method from Bill/SFNM (hence the two Bills). Norma liked the pizza very much but wanted to make a larger version using a rectangular pan. I volunteered to help her convert Trenton Bill's numbers for a round pizza to the numbers for a large rectangular pizza. It was in the course of doing this, along with further input from Trenton Bill, that we concluded that what he and Norma had made were basically clones of the Buddy's pizza, using a dough recipe that was cobbled together from ideas from the Buddy's thread. Rather than merging the two threads, and since Norma thought that she might want to make and sell Buddy's clones at market, we decided to make this thread the home for a commercial version of the Buddy pizza. We were then off to the races, and before we knew it, we were taking a fresh look at reverse engineering and cloning the Buddy's dough and pizza. What I found most interesting is that Buddy's didn't stand still over the past six years. They made many changes, and it was trying to identify those changes and and differences in their pizzas that took a lot of time and work to decipher.

Peter

Oh, well, it's all pizza!

I hope the Buddy's changes are all good ones.  I can't tell you how disappointed I was to learn that my beloved Vernors Ginger Ale (http://goo.gl/g9E5s) now contains fructose and artificial flavors.

Sadly, unlike, say, technology, changes in food products seem almost always to be of the corner- and/or cost-cutting variety and rarely of the "make better" variety.

[Skee]

I can't tell you how disappointed I was to learn that my beloved Vernors Ginger Ale (http://goo.gl/g9E5s) now contains fructose and artificial flavors.

Ah, Vernor's!  When I was in 7th grade, mid-'70s, we lived in Ann Arbor for a year and Vernor's was my favorite soda - stick your nose in the glass, take a sniff, and sneeze from all the ginger and carbonation.  We moved to Austin and by the time I saw Vernor's again it was a pale imitation of the original, for sure - it's just another gingerale now.

[gschwim]

Ah, Vernor's!  When I was in 7th grade, mid-'70s, we lived in Ann Arbor for a year and Vernor's was my favorite soda - stick your nose in the glass, take a sniff, and sneeze from all the ginger and carbonation.  We moved to Austin and by the time I saw Vernor's again it was a pale imitation of the original, for sure - it's just another gingerale now.

I've ordered it online and to me, it still has that distinctive taste, different from, say, Canada Dry.  But still, you're right, some indefinable something is missing.

In my youth, back in Detroit, we used to heat it up in winter and serve it in a cup with a cinnamon stick.

And did you know, Vernors won a taste contest on Serious Eats? http://goo.gl/57eDk

Anyone else here from Michigan?  Maybe we can turn this "Two Bill’s pizza..dough and Carmelina Sauce..great!" thread that got turned into a Buddy's Pizza thread, into a Vernors thread.

[norma427]

I sure don’t know if the extra mix time helped to strengthen the Buddy’s clone dough, but it sure seemed to.  These are only the two pies made the first thing this morning, but the Buddy’s clone doughs were tempered at about 104 degrees F in the Hatco Unit for about an hour.  The dough didn’t seem to rise as much as before in the hours time, but I decided to proceed.  What I found was interesting in my opinion.  The dough didn’t have the fermentation bubbles like before when tempered, but when the Buddy’s clone pizzas were baked it rose to the same height and was light and tender in the crumb.  I guess what I mean to say is that the tempered dough did seem stronger.  There also was no sagging under the sauce today, no matter how many ingredients I added to a Buddy’s clone pizzas.  I really can’t understand what was going on with that and it kind of has me stumped in that the dough didn’t seem to rise as much while tempering, but the crust rose the same during the bake and the crumb remained tender and almost melted in your mouth. 

All the doughs acted the same way today when tempering and also the pizzas were the same in the crumb.  I thought it was strange when everything acted the same today from morning until evening.  I sure have no idea if the extra strength in the Buddy’s dough did have something to do with that or not.

I think I might also have another problem, but am not sure if I will.  A man tried the Buddy’s clone cheese pizza today and really liked it.  He said it reminded him of a old time Sicilian pizza that you can’t find anywhere anymore being it was so light and easy to eat.  He also really liked the caramelized edges.  He asked me if I could make him whole pizzas for the Super Bowl and asked if I had a regular pizza shop.  I told the man I didn’t have a regular pizza shop and gave him my phone numbers and told the man I am not sure if I could make whole pizzas for the Super Bowl for him since I can’t be at market on a weekend.  I said I could try to make some half-baked ones and see how that goes before the Super Bowl.  The man did say he had a pizza stone after I questioned him.

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[norma427]

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I sure don’t know if the extra mix time helped to strengthen the Buddy’s clone dough, but it sure seemed to.  These are only the two pies made the first thing this morning, but the Buddy’s clone doughs were tempered at about 104 degrees F in the Hatco Unit for about an hour.  The dough didn’t seem to rise as much as before in the hours time, but I decided to proceed.  What I found was interesting in my opinion.  The dough didn’t have the fermentation bubbles like before when tempered, but when the Buddy’s clone pizzas were baked it rose to the same height and was light and tender in the crumb.  I guess what I mean to say is that the tempered dough did seem stronger.  There also was no sagging under the sauce today, no matter how many ingredients I added to a Buddy’s clone pizzas.  I really can’t understand what was going on with that and it kind of has me stumped in that the dough didn’t seem to rise as much while tempering, but the crust rose the same during the bake and the crumb remained tender and almost melted in your mouth. 

All the doughs acted the same way today when tempering and also the pizzas were the same in the crumb.  I thought it was strange when everything acted the same today from morning until evening.  I sure have no idea if the extra strength in the Buddy’s dough did have something to do with that or not.

Norma,

It is always a challenge to explain specific outcomes but the decision to knead the dough more than usual reminded me of the comments I made in the first paragraph of Reply 1111 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21559.msg231134.html#msg231134. In light of those comments, it would be interesting to see how a dough made like the last one would perform without salt. If that dough yields a finished crust without sagging or excessive hills and valleys, it would once again resurrect the notion that Buddy's may be using little or no salt in its dough. It would also give greater credence to the desirability of achieving a strong gluten matrix.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

It is always a challenge to explain specific outcomes but the decision to knead the dough more than usual reminded me of the comments I made in the first paragraph of Reply 1111 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,21559.msg231134.html#msg231134. In light of those comments, it would be interesting to see how a dough made like the last one would perform without salt. If that dough yields a finished crust without sagging or excessive hills and valleys, it would once again resurrect the notion that Buddy's may be using little or no salt in its dough. It would also give greater credence to the desirability of achieving a strong gluten matrix.

Peter

Peter,

I know it is always a challenge to explain specific outcomes.  I do recall the comments that you made in the first paragraph at Reply 1111.  What do you want me to do?  Do you want me to make a Buddy’s clone dough in my Hobart without salt again?  I understand it would resurrect the notion that Buddy’s may be using little or not salt in its dough.  I will try again if you want me too, but today I had no hills and valleys or no sagging under the sauce.  I was glad for once I had no sagging or no hills and valleys.   

I will post the rest of the pictures tomorrow of some of the other Buddy’s clone pizzas that were made today tomorrow, but most of them were sold fresh out of the oven, so I didn’t have time to take pictures of all of the Buddy’s clone pizzas that were made today.  Some customers were even waiting today for the Buddy’s clone pizzas today. 

My camera also broke down near the end of the day, so Steve will post the pictures of the one Buddy’s clone pizza.  I also had one extra Buddy’s clone dough ball leftover in the steel pan so I gave it to Steve to try in his home oven to see if he gets the same results as I did at market today.

I also wanted to post that I used 9.5 ounces of dough for the 4-square pizzas today and 19 ounces for the 2 8-square pies.  The other thing that stumped me was the 8-square Buddy’s clone pizzas were a lot higher in height than normal.  The dough looked the same when tempered as the 4-square doughs.  That really has me stumped.   

Norma