Yesterday, I tried the new “dough warming” method again but this time using another dough formulation--the Lehmann Chicago cracker style dough formulation as presented at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/lehmann_crackerstyle.php. I have been meaning for some time to try out that formulation to compare with my recent cracker crust experiments. In particular, I was anxious to see if that dough formulation would produce only a “cracker” type crust, as the title of the recipe suggests, or whether it would also produce a noticeable degree of crispiness. I also wanted to find out if the new dough warming method would be useful for that formulation, which I characterize as a medium-hydration dough but with added “wetness” because of a rather high fat content (12%).
In order to use the latest Lehmann dough formulation, I had to make a few modifications. First, I decided to use a nominal thickness factor of 0.09, for purposes of using the expanded dough calculating tool at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html. This was necessary because the instructions for the Lehmann dough formulation do not specify a pizza size and corresponding dough skin weight from which to calculate the thickness factor. Since this is a commercial dough formulation, pizza size and skin thickness are left to the user, who normally has a commercial sheeter/roller to roll out the dough into a sheet or ribbon and to cut out skins of the desired size and thickness, leaving behind some (recyclable) scrap. For purposes of using the dough calculating tool, I used a pizza size of 15” to make a skin of 14”, the size of my dark, anodized non-perforated pizzatools.com cutter pan (the one-inch difference represents scrap). Second, I substituted instant dry yeast (IDY) for compressed yeast, mainly for convenience since I do not have access to compressed yeast. Making this change necessitated making a minor change in the formula hydration, as noted below. Third, in the absence of the Lehmann dough formulation specifying a specific flour to use, I elected to use the Harvest King flour, which has worked out very well in my prior efforts. I did not sift the flour. Fourth, I used my cutter pan rather than a stone or screen/disk.
The final dough formulation I ended up with was as follows:
Flour (100%): Water (45.1666%): IDY (0.08333%): Salt (1.5%): Olive Oil (8%): Sugar (1.5%): Butter/Margarine (4%): Total (160.24993%):
| 281.37 g | 9.92 oz | 0.62 lbs 127.08 g | 4.48 oz | 0.28 lbs 0.23 g | 0.01 oz | 0 lbs | 0.08 tsp | 0.03 tbsp 4.22 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.76 tsp | 0.25 tbsp 22.51 g | 0.79 oz | 0.05 lbs | 5 tsp | 1.67 tbsp 4.22 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 1.06 tsp | 0.35 tbsp 11.25 g | 0.4 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.38 tsp | 0.79 tbsp 450.89 g | 15.9 oz | 0.99 lbs | TF = 0.09
|
Note: No residue compensation.
Following the instructions for making the dough (but adding the IDY to the flour), I ended up with a dough ball as shown in the first photo below. At that point, the dough ball was soft, moist and supple. It was allowed to ferment/rise at room temperature (70 degrees F) for a period of 5 hours, as called for by the instructions for the Lehmann recipe. During that time, the dough expanded, but mostly laterally to the sidewalls of the storage container. As noted in the dough formulation above, the amount of IDY is very small, so the expansion of the dough ball was quite slow. The dough then went directly into the refrigerator, for a period of about 24 hours.
As noted above, another major change was that I used the dough warming method. This method was used after I had removed the dough ball from the refrigerator after the 24-hour cold fermentation period. Before working with the dough ball, it was allowed to warm up for about two hours in my proofing box (at 115-120 degrees F), following which I rolled out the dough. In rolling out the dough, I used a multiple fold and re-roll method. This turned out to be harder than I thought it would be. Even though the dough was initially soft and moist and highly extensible, it toughened up as I tried to roll it out after folding it. To see if using a different rolling pin would help, I decided to switch from my heavy marble rolling pin to my lightweight French wood tapered rolling pin. I had read recently in a review by Cooks Illustrated that that type of rolling pin was considered very good for rolling out different types of dough, including pizza dough. That rolling pin, which is shown along with my regular rolling pin in the second photo below, turned out to be a significant improvement—significant enough for me to consider using with other cracker-style doughs. (For an inexpensive source of tapered rolling pins, see
http://www.fantes.com/rolling_pins.htm#straight).
With the tapered rolling pin, I was able to fairly easily roll out the dough to a skin size of about 15”. From that skin, I used my cutter pan as a template to cut out a 14” skin. Based on a dough skin weight of 12.30 ounces, I calculated that the thickness factor of the skin was 0.0799073. After docking that skin on both sides, I placed the skin into my 14” cutter pan, which I had lightly pre-oiled with a light olive oil.
I decided that I would not pre-bake the skin this time but rather dress it and bake it in the usual manner. I used slices of low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese followed by a 6-in-1 sauce with Italian dried oregano, and Hormel pepperoni slices and green pepper slices. The dressed pizza was baked on the lowest oven rack position for about 11 minutes, in a preheated 475-degree F oven. It was then moved to the topmost oven position for about another minute.
The remaining photos show the finished pizza. The pizza was cracker-like but it was not particularly crispy. Rather, it was quite tender and reflected the rather high oil content (8%), plus the addition of more fat in the form of the butter (4%), resulting in a total fat content of close to 12% (when the water in butter is accounted for). In retrospect, to get a more crispy crust, I perhaps would have pre-baked the crust, much like I did with the high-fat dough skin for the Chicago-style Giordano clone that I made and reported on at Reply 8 at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5045.msg50247.html#msg50247. Also, I think I would have dispensed with the folding and re-rolling process since my efforts along those lines did not produce much in the way of added crispiness in the finished crust. It is possible, however, that I just didn’t do the best job with the lamination method. So, it is not entirely clear whether the dough warming method contributes enough value to the process to warrant its use with the latest Lehmann dough formulation.
But, if one is interested in achieving a finished crust that is cracker-like and tender rather than crispy, the Lehmann Chicago-style cracker crust formulation should provide those particular characteristics. I might add, however, that as between the latest pizza and the Giordano clone mentioned above, I preferred the Giordano clone—in terms of crust characteristics (more crispy) and better flavor, even though the latest pizza used 4% butter.
Peter