Thin Crust tonight

[Randy]

Steve and DKM have me addicted to thin crust and tonight will be another try.  Even my wife who never liked thin crust finds the thin crust pizza to be a delight.  I am still having problems with the crust browning beyond the edges.  The edge is beautiful but the rest of the bottom of the pizza is anemic.
Tonight I will change to high gluten flour and see if that makes a difference over KA bread flour.

Randy

Today’s recipe
Thin Crust

Thursday, November 04, 2004

6.5 oz. warm water(90F)
1  teaspoons bread machine yeast. Or SAF Perfect Rise yeast
1 pound KA high gluten flour flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon Classico olive oil.

Mix together the flour and salt.  Place roughly half the flour mixture in the mixing bowl then add the yeast to the bowl.  Measure the water and add the honey & sugar to the water. Pour that into the mixer and mix on stir for two minutes.  Add remaining flour mixture and oils and go to kneading speed on your mixer.  Knead for 5 minutes.  Place in tightly sealed greased bowl for at least 9 hours.  After rolling prick a lot of holes in the dough.  Bake at 450 deg F for 10 to 13 minutes

[itsinthesauce]

Try spraying the pans with Pam and sprinkling cornmeal on top of that. Works for me.

[Randy]

Thanks Itsinthesauce, I do spray the perforated pan with pam but I do not use cornmeal but I do notice a difference in the browning of my NY when I incorporate more corn meal. Interesting.

Here is dough from this morning.  It will sit on the counter until tonight.  I was surprised how well the dough came together when I switched from bread flour to high gluten using exactly the same amount of water.

By the way, I tried tightly sealing my proof container and it blew the top off sounding like a busted balloon.  I was going to say like a sonic-boom but realized most of the younger people on the list may not have heard what used to be a common occurrence.

Randy

[itsinthesauce]

Yea, it works, but don't incorporate it into the dough mixture, just sprinkle on liberally and shake off the excess.

[DKM]

I seem to be hit and miss on the browning of my thin crust.  Sometimes they come out real nice, other times they don't.  I haven't been able to figure out the differences yet.

DKM

[Randy]

Did something real fun with the estra dough cut from the cutter pan.  I took the 2" wide strip and cut it into 2" long pieces and placed them on a thin cookie sheet with bit of sauce, a peperoni and cheese.  They were very crunchy and great for a pizza snack.

Randy

[Randy]

Well, switching to KA high gluten flour from KA bread flour only made the dough extremely hard to roll out.  The bread flour recipe rolled out with little effort.  No noticeable difference in crispness or flavor over bread flour.

I wonder if it is the pan that makes more of a difference.  The dough pieces baked on a very thin cookie sheet were crunchy crispy.  As I posted last night in a sudden whim I took the extra 2” wide strip of dough and cut it into squares to made mini pizzas.  They were incredibly crisp when baked on the thin cookie sheet.  These things were so good I will not throw away the extra dough again.

Maybe it is time to make a square pizza on a cookie sheet with turned under edges to make an edge.

How thick are the pizza pans at Pizza Inn?

Randy

[DKM]

I'm messure one when I get home.

DKM

[PepesWhiteClam]

What do you guys think about adding 1/2 cup of cornmeal to dough?  Does that make it harder or easier to do thin?  Haven't tried that yet.

[Randy]

Can't say I have hearded of it added to a thin crust but who knows, give it a shot.

Randy

[itsinthesauce]

When I've added corn meal to thin crust, I've never had great success. Let us know if it works for you.

[PepesWhiteClam]

I didnt have much success with cornmeal in the dough for the thin crest.  Part of the problem is the KA hi gluten flour is hard to roll out thin.  More so with cornmeal it seems...

I found a tip from another source that seemed to help.  Rolling out chilled dough quickly and getting it in the oven before it rises.  That helped but hard to do with Hi gluten.   Here is the site i found:


http://www.taunton.com/finecooking/pages/c00002.asp

I found on KA's site that they sell a Italian-Style Flour (about 8.5%) that they say will help make a thin light crust.  Which appears to be different that what is on this site.

Whatta guys think?  Is the trick using a low protein flour and rolling it out chilled  and getting in the oven prior raising?  Anyone tried that and have success?

Cheers

[Pete-zza]

The KA Italian-Style flour is intended to be a "clone" or to "mimic" imported Italian "00" flour.  It is best used to make Neapolitan style pizzas.  I have tried the KA version and did not think it was as good as the real (imported) 00 flours.  I have never seen anyone try to use a 00 flour (or the KA clone) to make a thin crust pizza.  Usually, a much higher gluten flour is used.  

Peter