Adding kiddie vitamins to dough?

[SemperFi]

November,

Wife is a little burned out with pizza, so I was surfing about general doughs and such, and came to this website about Alton Browns pizza.

http://www.bakeorbreak.com/category/yeast-breads/

In it, it said to add a kiddie vitamin to the dough, I quote,

"Alton’s pizza dough recipe is straight forward. The dough was prepared using the straight dough method (all ingredients combined at once, leavening time, then baking) using AP flour (454g), salt (11g), a bit of sugar (5g), and (next time as we didn’t have any in the house) a children’s chewable aspirin (for the vitamin C). Warm water (1 1/4 cups) was the only wet ingredient."


Is this safe?  I understand that using "only vitamin C" is one thing, but can true aspirin be heated and cooked and still be considered chemically safe to ingest?  And what about the one that uses a kiddie vitamin, which are a muli vitamin variety.  Peter talked a bit on this at this post:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1029.msg9181.html#msg9181

but even he didn't venture into the possibility of someone unknowingly using a multi vitamin.  What is your take on it?  Is it just too much tinkering with science to roll the dice on this?  Thanks for your knowledge Red.   Adam

[November]

Adam,

I like Alton Brown, but sometimes I wonder about that man.  There is absolutely no reasonable explanation for adding aspirin to dough.  If one wants to add ascorbic acid, fine, but aspirin is just a waste in every respect.  It costs more, it doesn't benefit the dough, and it decomposes at 284 F.  You would benefit from adding acne medication and vinegar just as much as adding aspirin.  Not only would that be unpleasant tasting, but also unwise.  Salicylic acid is just plain nasty stuff.

- red.november

[Locke]

It was a misprint, his website has changed and I can no longer find the corrections there so this will have to do http://dcfud.smorgasblog.com/archives/001312.html

Yes, apparently someone in the printing process took some liberties and ended up substituting aspirin for the ingredient children's chewable Vitamin C tablet (creates a better acidic environment for the yeast), a substitution AB found rather ironic.

"I myself am deathly allergic to aspirin," he said. "So I now have a book that contains a recipe that would KILL me if I ate it."

[DWChun]

Very interesting!

I'm allergic to aspirin too so I'd definitely not use it even if it wasn't a misprint.

Is there really a significant benefit to adding extra acid to dough for pizza? I'm trying to understand why Alton Brown's recipe would call for it considering the great dough recipes I've seen work great without any extra acidity.

[JoeyBagadonuts]

He says add to dough for the vitamin C.  I am very suprised Alton would say something like this. Doesn't he know that vitamin C degrads very quickly when exposed to heat, rendering it useless.

[November]

Doesn't he know that vitamin C degrads very quickly when exposed to heat, rendering it useless.

Adding ascorbic acid is very common in the dough making world.  It's even included in bread machine and RapidRise yeast.  I'm not sure if you understand that it's for the yeast, not humans.  Yeast will die from the heat long before the ascorbic acid decomposes.

- red.november