Papa Gino's Recipe

[fredyk82]

Does anyone know the recipe for papa gino's pizza?  Any info is appreciated,(crust, sauce, or cheese blend). Thanks!  

[Pete-zza]

fredyk82,

If you go to the Papa Gino's website, at http://www.papaginos.com/nutrition/, and look at the ingredients list, you will see what goes into their pizza doughs (shells), sauce and cheeses. How much do you know about how they make and bake their pizzas, or anything else about their pizzas for that matter?

Peter

[JConk007]

I used to eat Papa Ginos all the time when I lived in New Hampshire (Laconia) in the early 80's
One of the few places at that time you could but a slice, I remember $.50 each !
They used a (revolving oven metal shelf?)  The picture on the site is exactly as I remember. Now that I know a bit I think they used Diced cheese too, scoop it up in cup, and spread it around., and I also remember the guy really threw around the fresh dough, from the proofing box Like all the rest of the chains I think they  have changed for the worse. I had it in Mass. about 6 yrs ago and was very disappointed. I would like to try to recreate the original I used to eat.
John

[Pete-zza]

For the record, fredyk82 sent me a PM to tell me that he doesn't know how the pizzas are made at Papa Gino's. He just likes to eat them.

From what I have read, Papa Gino's has their dough balls made at a commissary.

Next time I am up north I will have to check them out.

Peter

[JConk007]

Yes Peter,
as mentioned gone down hill, but worth a shot They were not frozen For sure when I used to eat there. Now like P Hut they probably get them on the truck.
j

[fredyk82]

My favorite Papa gino's pizza is the papa-roni, it's covered with loads of cheese and pepperoni and probably will kill me someday. I just was trying to re-create it in my own kitchen. I also just found out that my neighbors' son works there. I will have to ask him if he can help me out with any details. I'll be sure to post any findings. Again thanks to all who replied.   

[Pete-zza]

fredyk82,

What I would most be interested in, just to satisfy my curiosity for the time being, is the type of oven being used to bake the Papa Gino's pizzas. Some time ago, the folks who own Papa Gino's bought the d'Angelo's sandwich chain with whom Papa Gino's often shared facilities. I would think that they would want to use the same ovens to heat up the d'Angelo sandwiches as bake the pizzas. The type of oven that Papa Gino's is using should be something that you should be able to ascertain simply by going to one of their shops. The oven tenders might even tell you what they are using. What John mentioned about the ovens sounds like a Rotoflex oven or a rotary oven as were used for years in the Chicago area to bake deep-dish pizzas, but neither of those choices seems logical today because of cost and the move toward conveyor ovens by more and more of the chains.

Peter

[JConk007]

80s was a big ferris wheel fit like 4 accross.
Last time might have even seen and Impinger.
John

[widespreadpizza]

Peter, papa ginos uses (at least the one near me) standard deck ovens  I think they are hobarts and are stacked.  Dangelos is aslo near me and not until very recently when quiznos showed up around here did not "toast " sandwiches.  hope that is useful to you.  -marc

[scott r]

All the Papa Ginos I have ever been to have used deck ovens, and I have been to at least 20 different locations.  Papa Ginos uses a very simple dough, and I don't taste much if any sugar in there.  Im not sure about the oil content, but it doesn't seem like much.  the salt level is moderate, probably between 1-1.5 percent.  Its a straightforward NY style pizza, but a bit thinner than say a Sbarros or Rays.  They use non bromated high gluten flour packaged especially for them and mix up a dough thats right around 60% hydration.  The pizzas are cooked at roughly 450 degrees and pulled before they get any real charring.  They use a simple 6 in 1 style tomato sauce that is not spiced very much or cooked before it goes on the pizza.

As some of you may know, white cheddar cheese is very often substituted for mozzarella cheese in the Boston suburbs, especially south of the city where Papa Gino's rules the streets.  Basically what Papa Gino's is doing is taking a typical NY style street pizza, and adding some white cheddar cheese to cater to local tastes.  They use a blend of white cheddar, mozzarella, and romano, so they straddle the line between a typical Boston style pizza (dough left to rise in a greased pan, then topped with white cheddar), and a NY style pizza (hand tossed dough cooked directly on the deck of the oven with mozzarella and romano cheese.   

The final key to duplicating the Papa Gino's pizza is corn meal on the bottom of the crust.

good luck fredyk!

[Pete-zza]

scott,

According to the PG ingredients list, the "shell" includes wheat flour, dry yeast, salt and water--no sugar and no oil. I, too, would have guessed something around 60% hydration, maybe even a bit less.

The PG pizza cheese is described as follows: Mozzarella cheese (pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enzymes), Aged cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enzymes), romano cheese (sheeps milk, rennet, salt), oregano, natural flavors, salt, sodium citrate, sodium propionate.

The pizza sauce is: tomatoes, salt, black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, citric acid .

Peter

[JConk007]

Throw me some %'s and I'll give it a whirl!
Thanks
John

[Pete-zza]

John or scott r or fredyk,

Can you give me a general idea as to whether a typical Papa Gino's pizza is light or heavy on the sauce or cheeses? And is there an estimate as to the ratio of the mozzarella and aged white cheddar cheeses? For background purposes, according to the nutrition data at the PG website, a baked 14" cheese pizza weighs almost 32 ounces, a basic 14" pepperoni pizza has a baked weight of almost 35 ounces, and the 14" Papa Roni pepperoni pizza, which has 50% more cheese and pepperoni than the basic 14" pepperoni pizza, has a baked weight of about 39 1/2 ounces. After looking at some photos online of PG pizzas, I estimate that there are about 40 pepperoni slices on the 14" pepperoni pizza and about 60 pepperoni slices on the 14" Papa Roni pizza. From the ingredients list for the pepperoni, the product looks to be quite similar to the Hormel pepperoni. The cheese blend (mozzarella, aged cheddar and grated Romano) also includes oregano.

From the nutrition data, I believe that the amount of sauce is the same for all of the 14" pizzas that call for a tomato-based sauce and that the amount of dough used for all of the 14" pizzas is also the same. From the photos, the crust coloration is also on the light side, which confirms what scott said about pulling the pizzas before they can get char. As for the tomatoes, I believe that the 6-in-1s can be used but that the Stanislaus Tomato Magic or 7/11 might also be used given that the PG ingredients list for the pizza sauce includes citric acid, which the 6-in-1s do not use. In addition to the tomatoes, the other ingredients for the pizza sauce are salt, black pepper, oregano, garlic powder and, as referenced above, citric acid.

Peter

[scott r]

medium sauce and medium cheese.   I would guess that the blend is 65% mozz 30% cheddar and 5% or less romano.  Although they say it is aged cheddar, I have a feeling it is mild white cheddar, and definitely not sharp.   

Good luck guys!

[JConk007]

I second the medium/ medium
John

[Pete-zza]

Thanks, guys.

Let me play around with some numbers.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

I now have a set of numbers to play around with.

Since it has been years since I last had a PG pizza, I feel like a passenger who has taken over for a stricken pilot and you guys are in the control tower trying to talk me down to a safe landing. But, whatever happens, for me to bring the Papa Gino's plane to a safe landing, the numbers have to work. Most importantly, no matter what we do with the numbers, an unbaked 14" PG cheese pizza has to weigh around 32 ounces, an unbaked 14" PG pepperoni pizza has to weigh around 35 ounces, and an unbaked 14" PG Paparoni pizza has to weigh around 40 ounces. Otherwise, we won't capture the look and feel and authenticity of PG pizzas. I should also point out that the above numbers are actually a bit on the conservative side because there is some loss in the weight of the pizzas during baking.

For me, the hardest part from a reverse engineering standpoint has been getting the cheeses and their ratios right. Based on the PG nutrition information, and also the PG FAQ section of the PG website at http://www.papaginos.com/nutrition.html?topic=faq, the mozzarella cheese is a low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese (LMPS). It is also quite possible that the cheddar cheese, whether aged or not, is a low-fat (reduced fat) cheddar cheese (see, for example, the nutrition data for a Cabot sharp fat reduced cheddar cheese at https://www.shopcabot.com/pages/products/light/50Light-Cheddar.php and http://www.cabotcheese.com/pages/nutrition/nutrlt50chdr.html). Cheddar cheeses in general tend to have more fat and sodium and cholesterol on a unit basis than a LMPS mozzarella cheese, which will skew the total numbers upward, making it more difficult to fit the numbers into the PG nutrition data. A reduced fat cheddar cheese would fit the nutrition profile better.

After playing around with various combinations of the three cheeses in the PG cheese blend, I felt that a plausible combination is 75% LMPS, 23% white cheddar cheese (regular), and 2% grated Romano cheese. Plus a bit of oregano, to be true to the PG ingredients list for the pizza cheeses. Typical amounts of cheese for a 14" pizza range from about 8 to 10 ounces. I recommend a starting quantity for the first experiment of 8.75 ounces. Assuming that the LMPS mozzarella cheese and the cheddar cheese are to be used in diced form (I use my food processor for dicing purposes), I suggest using 6.6 ounces (75% of the total) of LMPS mozzarella cheese, 2 ounces of cheddar cheese (23% of the total) and about 5 grams of grated Romano cheese (2% of the total). Five grams of grated Romano cheese will be around one tablespoon. For the 14" PG Paparoni pizza, which uses 50% more cheese than the 14" PG pepperoni pizza, I would use a bit over 13 ounces of the cheese blend, using the same ratios as mentioned above.

Typical amounts of sauce for a 14" pizza range from about 5.5 ounces to about 7 ounces. I suggest 6.2 ounces. I based that weight on the Stanislaus Tomato Magic ground tomatoes, which includes the citric acid component of the PG ingredients list for the PG pizza sauce. To the tomatoes, I would add black pepper, oregano and garlic powder. You should exercise your best judgment as to the amounts of black pepper, oregano and garlic powder to use. If you don't have the Tomato Magic tomatoes, I suggest using the 6-in-1s or the Stanislaus 7/11 ground tomatoes, which also include citric acid.   

With respect to the PG pepperoni pizzas, from online photos of those pizzas that I inspected quite closely under magnification, I believe that the 14" PG pepperoni pizza uses about 40 pepperoni slices. Since the Paparoni pizza uses 50% more pepperoni than the basic PG 14" pepperoni pizza, that means that you would use 60 pepperoni slices for the 14" Paparoni pizza. Using numbers from Hormel (their pepperoni contains pretty much the same ingredients as the PG pepperoni), 40 pepperoni slices will weigh around 2.86 ounces, and 60 slices will weigh around 4.3 ounces. These numbers may be a little bit light because it is possible that PG is using a slightly thicker pepperoni slice. But the differences do not appear to be material.

For the dough (more on this below), I would start with a 16 ounce dough ball. That translates into a thickness factor of 0.103938. With that size dough ball, I would use about an ounce of cornmeal on the bench when opening up the dough ball. According to the PG ingredients list, the cornmeal should be degermed yellow cornmeal. The one ounce is an estimate on my part because I didn't have any on hand to actually weight it.

Here are my breakdowns for the clone PG 14" cheese, pepperoni and Paparoni pizzas (unbaked):

14" Cheese:
16-ounce dough ball
1 ounce yellow cornmeal
8.75 ounces cheese blend (as further broken down above)
6.2 ounces pizza sauce
Total weight = 31.95 ounces (unbaked)

14" Pepperoni:
16-ounce dough ball
1 ounce yellow cornmeal
8.75 ounces cheese blend
6.2 ounces pizza sauce
2.86 ounces pepperoni slices
Total weight = 34.81 ounces (unbaked)

14" Paparoni:
16-ounce dough ball
1 ounce yellow cornmeal
13 ounces cheese blend
6.2 ounces pizza sauce
4.30 ounces pepperoni slices
Total weight = 40.5 ounces (unbaked)

For the dough, I suggest using a one- or two-day cold fermentation for purposes of the first experiment. For a single dough ball, including a bowl residue compensation of 1.5%, I would use the dough formulation presented below. For the flour, I would recommend using an unbleached, nonbromated high-gluten flour if possible. One high-gluten flour that meets that requirement is the King Arthur Sir Lancelot high-gluten flour. There is also an unbleached nonbromated All Trumps high-gluten flour that should be suitable. From the official photos of PG pizzas that I have seen, the pizzas seem to have a fairly well defined rim. That should be the objective with the dough made using the dough formulation presented below. That may also create a sense of thinness in the region inside of the rim. As scott r previously noted, the pizzas should be baked at about 450 degrees F and pulled before getting char. That might be more of a challenge with the Paparoni pizza because of the larger amounts of cheeses and pepperoni.

Using the expanded dough calculating tool at http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html, here is the proposed dough formulation:

High-Gluten Flour (100%): Water (60%): IDY (0.375%): Salt (1.5%): Total (161.875%):

284.42 g  |  10.03 oz | 0.63 lbs 170.65 g  |  6.02 oz | 0.38 lbs 1.07 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.35 tsp | 0.12 tbsp 4.27 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.76 tsp | 0.25 tbsp 460.4 g | 16.24 oz | 1.01 lbs | TF = N/A

Note: Bowl residue compensation = 1.5%

For two dough balls, the corresponding dough formulation is:

High-Gluten Flour (100%): Water (60%): IDY (0.375%): Salt (1.5%): Total (161.875%): Single Ball:

568.84 g  |  20.06 oz | 1.25 lbs 341.3 g  |  12.04 oz | 0.75 lbs 2.13 g | 0.08 oz | 0 lbs | 0.71 tsp | 0.24 tbsp 8.53 g | 0.3 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.53 tsp | 0.51 tbsp 920.81 g | 32.48 oz | 2.03 lbs | TF = N/A 460.4 g | 16.24 oz | 1.01 lbs

Note: Bowl residue compensation = 1.5%

I believe I have covered everything but if I have missed something, please let me know. It would also help to keep track of weights of the finished pizzas so that adjustments can be made to later iterations. Please also note any other suggested changes based on the results achieved that would move us closer in the direction of authentic PG pizzas.

Peter

Note: Edited to provide links on fat-reduced cheddar cheese (Cabot) and to the FAQ section of Papa Gino's website.

[JConk007]

Nicely done Peter! as usual.
I will attempt to give it a go this weekend, just need some Sir Lancelot or AT will start my search, and post the results.  14" is perfect for my stone.
Lets see how Papa G compares with Papa J 
John

[Pete-zza]

John,

You will note that I made some changes to my last post.

After I posted, I decided to do some more research on cheddar cheeses. I even went to a local high-end supermarket that carries a lot of cheeses to look at their labels on cheddar cheeses for Total Fat content, sodium content and cholesterol content. This was supplemented by some online research. From all of this, I concluded that "aging" as a process does not mean all that much, especially since it can be as short as six months and still be called "aged". Also, for those forms of cheddar cheese that are so-called "fat-reduced", the flavors can still be "sharp" or "mild" rather than bland, tasteless and boring.

What motivated me to do the research was the suspicion on my part that Papa Gino's may be using a fat-reduced cheddar cheese. Otherwise, I was coming up with numbers that made it hard to fit the PG nutrition information. As I previously noted, cheddar cheeses in general tend to have higher total fat content and higher sodium and cholesterol levels than mozzarellla cheeses. For example, the lowest cholesterol reading that I have seen for one ounce of a low-moisture part-skim (LMPS) mozzarella cheese (or for any regular mozzarella cheese for that matter) is 15 mg. By contrast, one ounce of a regular (non fat-reduced) cheddar cheese can easily be double that. The total fat and total sodium will usually also be higher for such cheeses. But one ounce of a fat-reduced cheddar cheese can have the same cholesterol value (around 15 mg.) as LMPS. And that version of cheddar cheese seems to make the numbers fit the PG nutrition information better. I know that Papa Gino's is concerned by the fat levels of its pizzas because of the prominence it gives to that concern in the FAQ section of its website, at http://www.papaginos.com/nutrition.html?topic=faq, where the fat question is the first one addressed.

In light of the above, I decided to re-run my cheese blend ratio numbers as well as those that scott r proposed. In both cases, the numbers looked better than when I assumed that regular cheddar cheese was being used as part of the blend. I will leave to you to decide on which blend of cheeses to use, but only ask that you relate whatever blend you use to what you recall from your past visits to PG stores in case some tweaking of the blend becomes necessary. It is also possible that the amount of cheese blend that I suggested (8.75 ounces for the basic cheese and pepperoni pizzas) may be too high. If so, that may mean having to adjust the numbers for the sauce and/or dough in future iterations in order to get the proper overall weights of the unbaked pizzas.

Peter

[JConk007]

OK
So I have the following
Romano for grating
LMPS Mozz
50% Reduced Fat white Cheddar (cabot) they also offer a 75% reduced version at the local store
Hopfully all trumps from the local Pizzeria or KASL from whole foods.
6 in 1's from the cabinet ,black pepper, Garlic powder,oregano, yellow corn meal
Hormel Pepperoni
Now how do you weigh it before baking on my little escali scale?
guess I could 0 out the peel and build it then weigh it right?
John