My first pizza turnout

[dankfoot]

First I want to say thanks to everyone that has helped and thank you Giovanni for your dough recipe.

Ok I made the dough which was sticky but I followed Giovanni's recipe so I wasnt that worried about it. I put it in the fridge for 24 hours. Yesterday I found a Italian market here in Raleigh so I went there at lunch to see what they had. I spoke to the owner and he helped me pick out some stuff. I ended up buying Cento pizza sauce, Margarita pepperoni and ovolini fresh mozz.

Went home at lunch and I made another dough via my mixer and my old recipe just in case the first dough didnt turn out and so I would have something to eat.

I took Giovanni's dough out and let rest for 1 hour. I heated my oven and got everything ready. When it was time to cook I put AP flour on the counter and put the dough on it. Then I turned it over and floured the other side. Then I pressed it down and started streching it. Well it streached very easy and in no time I had a 17' pizza dough ready to go. I had two kinds of sauce Muir Glen organic pizza sauce and the Cento pizza sauce. I wanted to try them both so I opened both cans and tried it out. The Muir Glen was sweeter but really good and the Cento had a more acid taste but was really good too. I let one more person taste it and we both liked the Cento better. So anyway I put the sauce on the pie and then the fresh mozz and then some whole milk mozz. Then the Pepperoni. Then I put it in the oven. I checked the pizza at about 7 min thinking it sould be done at 520 but it wasnt ready yet. But it was one of the best looking pies I have ever made so I was really happy. It cooked about 10 or 11 mins before it was done. Then I took out the pizza and let it air out for a few. Then I cut it and ate it and it was kick butt. The best pizza I have ever made. I dont think I could buy one in Raleigh that was any better. Well since we had 3 people eating it got gone kind of fast so I decided to try the other dough. I did the same thing to it. I floured it and started to strech it. It wasnt quite as soft as the first one and it was a little thicker. But I toped it the same way and cooked it. That pizza was really close to tasting the same as the first one. They were both great.

Here is how I made my 2nd dough.
Dissolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl.
add sugar to the water and mix. I just poured about 2 tbl spoons.
put in about 2 3/4 cups flour 2 teaspoons olive oil. 1/2 tea salt.
Turned the mixer on 2 and mixed for like 2 min. then I waited 2 min. Then turned it on 2 more min. Then let it rest about 2 min. Then turned it on one more time for about 1 min. Then put in a bowl put a small amout of oil in it rolled it around and put in the freezer for 20 min. Took it out and put on the counter for about 4 hours.

So I guess what im saying is Giovanni recipe was very good but it took me a long time to do it because I had never done it before and you do it by hand. The 2nd recipe is easy because u just put it all in the mixer for a few min.

Another thing I found out is when you use some of the best ingredients like the KA flour your going to have a good pizza anyway. This is the first time I have use the KA in a long time. And before I use to put it in a bread machine but I never got this good of results.

[Pete-zza]

Congratulations on the successful outcome.  And getting such good results on the first try makes it even more rewarding.  Did you take any photos?  If not, did your pizza look like Giovanni's?  

BTW, there is no reason why you can't use your stand mixer to make Giovanni's dough.  You may have to play around with the process a bit, but, from what I can tell, a stand mixer is what most home pizza makers use.  

You may also find that you don't need to use the dough freezing step for your second dough recipe.  Giovanni uses it in his recipe to cool the dough down faster before putting it into the refrigerator compartment to spend the next 24 hours or so.  I would guess that using the dough freezing step for your second dough neither hurts nor helps the dough that much over a 20-minute time frame, and that the bulk of the fermentation and flavor development takes place over the 4 hour rise period.  You might want to run a test sometime without the freezing step to see if you notice a difference.

I'm not surprised that you got better results than with your bread machine.  After playing around on several occasions with a bread machine, I concluded that a bread machine does a better job at making bread dough than pizza dough because of the programmed heat/knead cycle, which is more attuned to bread dough production.  You might be able to get around some of the programming to make a good pizza dough, but it takes a lot of fiddling around with water temperature and knead times to do so.  

Peter

[DKM]

Sounds really good.  I'm glad things worked out.  Just continue to make them and share the results.  Before you know it you will be changing things up and trying all sorts of new stuff.

DKM

[dankfoot]

Well in not real sure why I put the second dough in the freezer. It just sounded like a good idea. Also, I did use the mixer on the first dough but you had to help it out a lot. With the second dough I just put it in the bowl and turned it on. I do think giovanni's dough was better but the second one was was really good too. I think it is just the flour and the other stuff that made it so much better than normal.

[Pete-zza]

Dankfoot,

Giovanni's recipe uses 10 ounces of water for 16 ounces of flour.  That means a hydration percentage of 62.5% (10/16 = 62.5).  That's a bit on the high side and can mess with your ability to knead the dough in a stand mixer without stopping the mixer from time to time to play around with the dough to overcome the stickiness.  But the effort is well worth it.  The high hydration, along with the use of the KA high-gluten flour and the period of refrigeration, will usually result in a dough that is easy to handle, stretch and shape.  I'm guessing that your second dough recipe uses less water (by weight) relative to the weight of flour, which would also help account for why it didn't handle quite as nicely as the dough based on Giovanni's recipe.  

Do you have a scale to weigh the flour and water?  I found that having accurate weights of flour and water leads to fewer problems during kneading.  I started out with an inexpensive spring-loaded analog scale and later moved up to a more accurate digital scale.  Recently, I did a side by side comparison of the two units and was surprised how different the results were when weighing the same ingredients.  The digital scale is better (more accurate) but both types of scales are better than using volume measurements.

Peter

[Giovanni]

Glad to see things went well. I have found that the crust might not taste a whole lot different but it's the apperance that really changes with recipe and prep method changes. IE, better handeling, more airy crumb, better browing, etc. The cook time seemed kinda long but all ovens differ. Did you preheat for 25 minutes and check that it was truely at 520 degrees?

[dankfoot]

Yes the oven was 520 and i think it was preheated that long or longer.