Any comments,questions, suggestions....I'm all ears.
Bob,
I commend you for a job well done, even without seeing any photos!!
Based on everything that I know about HRI pizzas and all of the analysis I have done with the HRI Nutrition Facts for frozen pizzas (the only data I have), I believe that you have come very close to emulating the HRI sausage pizza, even if there were some mishaps. I am very impressed.
You threw me a curve ball by making a 10" pizza rather than a 12" pizza, which is the size of a frozen HRI sausage pizza (it is actually a 11 1/2" pizza), but I worked down my numbers from the 12" size to the 10" size, and I believe that your numbers are quite good. The thickness factor is very similar to what I calculated, and should give you the crust thickness of an HRI pizza, and the amounts of cheese and sausage are very much in line with my numbers. I think your sauce quantity may be a bit high, but I don't have a good feel on that at this point because most tomato sauces constitute about 88-90% water, yet not all of the water in a sauce is given up during baking. I still have some testing to do on this, so maybe I will have a better feel on how the sauce behaves during baking after I have finished my tests.
I definitely think your salt level is too low. Most of the sodium in an HRI pizza is in the mozzarella cheese and to a much lesser degree in the sauce (and, in your case, the sausage). I studied the sodium levels of four different Stanislaus and Escalon products and their sodium levels did not change the total sodium numbers much. I suggest that you use 2% salt. That is a level that I tried based on my analysis of the HRI Nutrition Facts, and when I did a side-by-side test with a real HRI pizza, I could not detect any difference in salt levels. From a salt standpoint, the two crusts were indistinguishable. Even the crusts were very similar, which was perhaps due to having the right thickness factor, as well as the proper amount of corn oil.
I think you can also increase the amount of yeast. That, along with using more salt, should give you more crust flavor. Using up to three days of cold fermentation should also help on the crust flavor front.
Although the FDA gives companies a lot of latitude on the Nutrition Facts, which I call the 20% rule, I feel that the mozzarella cheese that seems to most closely fit the HRI Nutrition Facts, especially when combined with the corn oil, both of which are part of the Total Fat and Sat Fat numbers in the HRI Nutrition Facts, is a low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese with the following profile: Serving size: 28-30 grams; Total Fat: 6 grams; Sat Fat: 3.5 grams; Cholesterol: 15mg; and Protein: 7-8 grams. The Sodium numbers vary from brand to brand, but there are countless low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheeses that fit the above profile, both national brands like Precious (the brand I found at my local supermarket), Frigo, Dragone or Stella, as well as many supermarket brands, like Kroger.
HRI makes a point of telling everyone that it uses a heavy puree to make its pizza sauce. My research shows that it is probably using a Stanislaus puree product. So, that would be a good choice. I do not have access to any Stanislaus puree product so my thought was to use the Classico puree as sold at many Wal-Marts. Unfortunately, my local Wal-Mart does not carry that particular Classico product. I ended up using a Cento puree but it was not as sweet as the fresh-pack tomatoes.
If you tweak your formulation along the lines discussed above, I think you can come quite close to the HRI frozen pizzas. The main challenge will be to get the flakiness of an HRI crust, and determining how to prepare the skins and bake the pizzas. I used a rolling pin to roll out the skin, even though I could have formed the skin by hand, and I docked the skin, just as HRI does. I used both a perforated disk and a perforated cutter pan (dark anodized). They both work quite well although at some point I may try using a pizza screen just to see if that is a better option. In my tests, I could not detect a material difference between my crusts and the HRI crusts. I even cut the pizzas into small pieces, closed my eyes, moved the pieces around, and then ate them, also while my eyes were closed. I couldn't tell which was which. Maybe I am not skilled enough or have a lousy taste palate, but I honestly couldn't detect a difference. Even the final pizza weights after baking were very close. The HRI pizza after baking was 756 grams. My clone pizza weighed 760 grams. Everything was based on my calculations but maybe luck was also a factor.
I look forward to your results with the dough that you have in the refrigerator.
Peter
