Chicago Cracker Style

[Randy]

When you made the dough doctor's Chicago thin crust did you use high gluten four?  His recipe does not specify.

How much yeast did you use and what type?

Did you use the optional butter?



Randy

[Steve]

I used high gluten flour and no butter. The crust turned out great.

[Randy]

Great, I will make it in the morning following his procedure for tomorrow evening.

Randy

[Randy]

I went Dough Doctor's recipe page and could not find a thickness to roll the dough and I didn't see an oven temp.

Steve did you have this information?

Randy

[Randy]

Here is the first pictures of the dough Doctor's Chicago style thin crust pizza.  His instructions say to run the mixture on slow speed for four to five minutes or until about 1/4 of the flour is still seen as white, dry flour in the mixer.  In this reduced version of his large-scale recipe four minutes produced the results you see in the picture with no white flour left.

[Randy]

With my hands I squeezed the dough into a ball and placed it in my to-be, tightly sealed proof pan for a four hour rise at room temperature.  Unless I forget I will take a picture at the end of the four hour rise.

Randy

[Randy]

I found in the archives where Steve has changed his baking temperature to 450°F for 12 minutes. Following his lead I think I will try 425°F and check it at 12 minutes.  Steve also noted that he uses the middle rack in the oven.

Randy

[DKM]

I'm not as sure who I want to do mine.

I think I will try the chicago style thin at 450 about 1 up from the bottom.  I'll still considering my other thin styles.

DKM

[Randy]

DKM, is 450 what you use on your thin crust?

Randy

[DKM]

Yes.

I tried 500 once and didn't like the way it came out.

DKM

[Randy]

Here is dough after 4 1/2 hours at room temp.  Not much change but then again it only had 1/8 tea yeast and 70 deg water.

[Randy]

I have made the best ball I could and put it in the cooler.

[Randy]

The dough rolled out nicely abd paned out without a problem.

[Randy]

We baked it for 13 minutes at 450F on the middle rack.  When we cut the pizza, we were disappointed   in the thinness and crispiness of the crust even though we had rolled it out to about 1/8” thickness and they were no crispy small bubbles.  The flavor on the other hand was very good and worth a rematch to work the bugs out of it.  As I mentioned the Dough Doctors recipe I used is a scaled down version from a large batch operation and I did use instant yeast instead of the fresh yeast in his recipe although I only used a smig under 1/8 teaspoon.  In addition, I think with the smaller batch the mix time of 4-5 minutes is to long.

Steve, any thoughts since you had more sucess?

Randy