Author Topic: New Tom Lehmann Cracker-Style Dough Formulation (Read 20966 times)

fazzari · « **Reply #40 on:** October 25, 2007, 11:48:05 PM »

Hi Peter
I tried an experiment. I took home a piece of our dough (37% hydration) after mixing. After about a 2 hour rise time, I laminated half the dough with rolling pin, folding the dough on itself 3 times. I produced an 8 inch, 6 ounce skin, which I refrigerated until day 2. The second half, I threw in the refrigerator overnight, brought out to room temperature for 5 hours and laminated as above....this dough was the easier of the two to roll. As I suspected, working such a low hydration dough so hard very easily made a cracker crust...I hope you can see how thick the bottom crust actually is (sorry about the picture, i'm kinda new at this). Baked in home oven for about 7 minutes at 550...probably would have cooked better around 475...but the result was a success. Now, how do you mix a low hydration dough at home??
After rereading Lehmann's article, I realize we don't make a cracker crust at my restaurant...Over the years we've done as much as we can to minimize the laminations, because you come up with a nice tender, crispy crust....this is more the crust my family and customers have come to love...but, I guarantee with just a couple more folds, they would be cracker.!!!!

John

Pete-zza · « **Reply #41 on:** October 26, 2007, 08:33:41 PM »

John,

Thank you for running the experiment. It looks like a decent fermentation and a nice, long warm-up time helps with the lamination process. I saw a cracker-style dough formulation recently that called for using PZ-44 to keep the dough from springing back when being worked into a skin. I have read that the PZ-44 is a common additive where the dough is to be run through a sheeter/roller.

With a thickness factor of around 0.10, which is equal to what one might use for a thin NY style crust, I wondered how you would get a crackery crust with your dough formulation, even with the low hydration. I will have to give your recipe a try sometime to see the crust texture you mentioned.

As for your question how one mixes a low hydration dough at home, I would say that the best way is to use a food processor. Tonight I made a 36% hydration cracker style dough using my 14-cup Cuisinart food processor. The finished dough weighed almost 23 ounces. I used the pulse feature to combine the dry ingredients and the rehydrated ADY yeast/water mix, followed by the oil, and then at full speed for about 30 seconds until the dough looked like a moist cornmeal. I then emptied the contents of the bowl onto a work surface and squeezed everything together into a ball. This series of steps worked beautifully. If I succeed with the dough, I will post pictures at the appropriate thread. I am following a specific recipe so I won't be rolling out the dough in advance to make it easier to form into a skin, as you suggested several posts ago. Maybe another time.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #42 on:** April 29, 2012, 08:09:04 PM »

I mixed the cracker style dough with the Ischia preferment in the food processor. I figured if the food processor worked out for the other attempt I am making on a cracker style, why wouldn’t the food processor work out with a higher hydration dough.

I used Peter method in mixing the sugar and salt into the water, and mixing well, before I put the Ischia preferment in. I used a lower amount of preferment than Peter did because the dough ball will be tried to be left at room temperature until Tuesday. I sure don’t know if it will last that long and not overferment, but at least I am giving it a try. I used the “poppy seed” trick so I could watch the expansion of the dough ball better. The dough ball was left in the plastic wrap and put into a plastic container with a lid on. I am not sure if I should have tried to oil the dough ball, or taken it out of the plastic wrap before putting it into the plastic container. I did use KASL for the flour.

I also used Mad_Ernie tip again posted at Reply 186 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5762.msg184469.html#msg184469 and just dumped out the coarse mixture on plastic wrap and in one instant it was shaped into a dough ball. I sure couldn’t have compressed this dough ball very much.

I sure don’t know how the food processor will workout with this cracker style with a preferment, but thought what would be the harm in trying. It sure didn’t take long for the mixture to be crumbly. This mixture was moister than my other attempt I am trying though. This was really a quick and easy dough to make if the cracker style pizza turns out okay.

This is the formulation I am trying and the pictures of the process so far. The first picture is of the Ischia starter before I used some of it to add to the mixture of water, salt and sugar.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #43 on:** April 29, 2012, 08:11:07 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #44 on:** April 29, 2012, 08:12:15 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #45 on:** April 30, 2012, 10:13:54 AM »

The preferment cracker style dough ball doesn’t look like it is fermenting at all after about 14 hrs. of room temperature fermentation at about 70 degrees F. The dough ball does smell like Ischia starter though. I don’t know what the white spots on the dough are, but hopefully from using the food processor I did get the ingredients mixed right. Does anyone think my dough might not have been mixed right? The dough does seem somewhat moist, so really I don’t see how this dough will be able to make a cracker style pizza. The spacing of the poppy seeds are still 1" apart.

Norma

DNA Dan · « **Reply #46 on:** April 30, 2012, 12:05:39 PM »

Looks fine Norma. The white spots are usually un-hydrated bits of flour or possibly yeast colonies struggling to survive. With the hydration this low you won't see much in terms of volume increasing. Just go with the recipe, it's strange I know (Especially after perfecting very developed slack doughs), but it works most the time for whatever reason. I think it's essentially a pie dough with less fat.

norma427 · « **Reply #47 on:** April 30, 2012, 06:35:59 PM »

Quote from: DNA Dan on April 30, 2012, 12:05:39 PM

Looks fine Norma. The white spots are usually un-hydrated bits of flour or possibly yeast colonies struggling to survive. With the hydration this low you won't see much in terms of volume increasing. Just go with the recipe, it's strange I know (Especially after perfecting very developed slack doughs), but it works most the time for whatever reason. I think it's essentially a pie dough with less fat.

Dan,

Thanks for your explanation and encouragement!

I also think that a cracker style is basically a pie dough, but with yeast added.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #48 on:** April 30, 2012, 06:40:33 PM »

When I returned from market today the preferment cracker-style dough does look like it is starting to ferment, but it is square since I put it in a square container.

Norma

DNA Dan · « **Reply #49 on:** May 01, 2012, 06:18:02 PM »

Well Norma how did it work out for you? or are you still fermenting?

Pete-zza · « **Reply #50 on:** May 01, 2012, 07:34:47 PM »

Dan,

Tuesday's is when Norma does her baking at market, and she usually returns to the forum to post some of her results at about 8:30 PM Central Standard Time. The rest are usually posted the next day, especially if she baked a lot of test pizzas.

Peter

norma427 · « **Reply #51 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:45:16 PM »

Quote from: DNA Dan on May 01, 2012, 06:18:02 PM

Well Norma how did it work out for you? or are you still fermenting?

Quote from: Pete-zza on May 01, 2012, 07:34:47 PM

Dan,

Tuesday's is when Norma does her baking at market, and she usually returns to the forum to post some of her results at about 8:30 PM Central Standard Time. The rest are usually posted the next day, especially if she baked a lot of test pizzas.

Peter

Dan, Peter and anyone else that is interested,

These are the results of the first attempt at a cracker style pizza with the Ischia starter.

The Ischia natural starter preferment cracker style pie turned out very well in the taste of the crust and was like a cracker style I would enjoy all the time. I am not still sure if I made a real cracker style pizza because I never tasted one before, but I will give this one a thumbs up.

Steve even liked this pie, as did my taste testers. It was crackery as far as I know. The skin was par-bake without any oil and then the olive oil was brushed on the par-baked crust before the tomato sauce, blend of mozzarellas, cheddar, Swiss cheese and hard salami were added. I was afraid of how the dough looked to be fermenting last evening and put it into the refrigerator overnight. It was taken out this morning and left to room temperature ferment until about 3:00 pm today when the pizza was made. The rolled out dough was also docked lightly.

Thanks Peter for giving me this alternative cracker style pie to try.

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #52 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:47:15 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #53 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:50:29 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #54 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:51:32 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #55 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:52:47 PM »

Norma

norma427 · « **Reply #56 on:** May 01, 2012, 09:53:49 PM »

Norma

nick57 · « **Reply #57 on:** May 01, 2012, 10:31:22 PM »

Great pics. Looks like you got some great bubbles and lamination. Was it really crispy? Looks like it. Makes me want to start a ball of dough right now. Gongrats on your success.

norma427 · « **Reply #58 on:** May 01, 2012, 10:48:50 PM »

Quote from: nick57 on May 01, 2012, 10:31:22 PM

Great pics. Looks like you got some great bubbles and lamination. Was it really crispy? Looks like it. Makes me want to start a ball of dough right now. Gongrats on your success.

Nick,

The slices were crispy, but the flavor of the crust using the Ischia starter was what made the crust taste better in my opinion.

Norma

DNA Dan · « **Reply #59 on:** May 02, 2012, 01:31:29 AM »

Quote from: Pete-zza on May 01, 2012, 07:34:47 PM

Dan,

Tuesday's is when Norma does her baking at market, and she usually returns to the forum to post some of her results at about 8:30 PM Central Standard Time. The rest are usually posted the next day, especially if she baked a lot of test pizzas.

Peter

Wow.. that sounds a little "stalkerish"! Thanks for the heads-up. The suspense was killing me.

Norma, so this was a total of ~28 hour ferment? Was this done entirely refridgerated? or did you room temp any of it? Sorry if I missed this somewhere.