Questions for my first Pizza

[Adam T]

I'm about to try to bake Randy's American style pizza (Pappa John's clone.) I'm pretty new to this so please excuse my ignorance.

16 oz High Gluten Flour (Hard Red Spring Wheat)
9.7  oz Water by weight(warm 120deg.  F)
2 TBS  raw sugar
1 TBS Honey
1 Tablespoon  Classico Olive Oil
2  Teaspoon Salt
1 package SAF Perfect Rise or Gourmet yeast

If I have all purpose flour (Gold Medal) should I add Gluten to it? I can get some King Arthurs Bread Flour or all purpose flour from my local grocer. If I need to I can order some of the correct flour but I'd like to try the recipe before I start ordering special ingredients. But if the correct flour will make all the difference I'll wait and order some.

Will extra virgin olive oil make a difference instead of classic olive oil?

I'm planning on using our Kitchen Aid mixer. I thought I read in a thread here that the Kitchen Aid mixer speed should be 1. Can anyone give me advice for my mixer speed?

("Knead for 6  minutes stop mixer for 5 minutes then start mixer back on knead speed for 6 more minutes.")

[Pete-zza]

Adam T,

I would go with the King Arthur bread flour rather than using all-purpose flour supplemented with vital wheat gluten. I know that Randy has also been using the Harvest King bread flour with good results, although I don't know if he prefers that flour over the KABF for his American style. The Harvest King flour is also sold in just about all supermarkets.

The Classico olive oil that Randy uses, which is also one of my favorite oils to use in a dough, is fairly mild. Using extra virgin olive oil may have too pronounced an olive oil flavor. Based on the most recent information I have been able to find on the PJ dough, PJ uses soybean oil in the dough. Soybean oil is often sold in supermarkets as vegetable oil. If you plan to go with soybean oil you will want to be sure that the label actually says soybean oil. PJ apparently uses (or used to use) a small amount of olive oil in its sauce, along with a much larger quantity of sunflower seed oil, so if you want to use olive oil somewhere, the sauce would be the place to use it.

I will leave to Randy to comment further, or to correct anything that I have said above that is wrong or out of order. He should also be able to help you with the mixer speeds to use.

Peter

[Adam T]

Great thanks for the tips. I looked for Harvest King bread flour but didn't see it. I'm going to try and find it, if I can I'll use it.

I did forget to ask about pizza stone vs. pan vs. screen. I have a stone but I don't have a screen, should I use the pan or the baking stone? I want to get this right and I'm new to this so I'll also mention I can use an "air-bake" or a standard pan.

[Pete-zza]

Adam T,

The Harvest King flour is sometimes sold as "Better for Bread" flour. In fact, the last bag I bought, just recently, says both "Harvest King" and "Better for Bread" on it. It is a General Mills flour.

I personally feel that a pizza screen is the best substrate to use for baking Randy's American style pizza, although Randy has indicated that it is possible to bake the pizza on a pizza stone. My main reservation about using a pizza stone is that the high level of total sugar in Randy's recipe is close to 10% which, in some ovens, might lead to premature browning of the bottom crust. So, I will defer to Randy on that point since I don't recall making one of Randy's American style pizzas on a pizza stone.

I would not use an "air bake" or other pan for Randy's American style. The air bake pan, if it's like the ones I have (light colored aluminum), may not produce enough bottom crust browning, and using some other pan is likely to produce a different product from a texture standpoint than when using a pizza screen. Of course, there is no harm in trying a pan, or even a pizza stone, until you get a pizza screen. So long as the pizza bakes up properly, it should still taste OK even if it is not a proper American style. However, if you use a pan, it should be dark in color and be able to take a temperature of around 475 degrees F without having a coating (if it is a Teflon-like coating) break down and emit noxious fumes.

Peter

[Adam T]

Well I tried the recipe this weekend. I found some Harvest King flour and purchased a pizza screen. The recipe is really good, everyone thought it tasted great. The pizza sauce I used I didn't care for, next time I think I'll just use some Contadina pizza sauce.

I made a 14" pizza on the pizza screen and made a small pizza with the extra dough on a stone. I think the screen gave better results but on the stone wasn't too bad.

In making this recipe I had a couple of missteps. I didn't dived the dough into balls as soon as I took it out of the fridge. As a result my pizza had a little misshaped side when it baked. I also wasn't certain how much kneading was too much or too little (I don't know what to look fo. I just mixed it per the instructions on speed 1 in my Kitchenaid.

Thanks again for the help from this forum.

Two questions.... how do you know when it's kneaded enough or too much? How do you "roll" out your dough into the correct shape? a rolling pin? always by hand?

[Pete-zza]

Adam T,

It appears that Randy missed your posts. However, if you look at Reply 5 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15815.html#msg15815, where I discussed efforts to make thinner versions of Randy's American style, you will see Randy’s original instructions for mixing and otherwise preparing the dough. Only he can tell us whether that has changed.

As far at the amount of kneading to do, you may want to take a look at this post (the italicized portion): http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,3560.msg30582.html#msg30582 (Reply 7). You may also want to take a look at the video at http://www.pizzatube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=086079795c442636b55f&page=&viewtype=&category=. That video applies to a commercial setting but the dough test shown therein should also apply to a home environment.

The only time that I can think of where you want to use a rolling pin or its home equivalent is when you are making cracker-style pizzas (where the amount of water is low in relation to the amount of flour), or for certain deep-dish doughs. Otherwise, you should be able to shape and stretch the dough out to final size by hand.

Peter