I decided over the past couple of days to make another try at a Papa Gino’s pepperoni clone pizza reflecting what I have learned to date. As a result, I made several changes in an effort to get my numbers closer to the numbers reflected in the PG nutrition data for a 14” pepperoni pizza.
First, I decided to use 18 ounces of dough, instead of the 16 ounces I used before. This was to try to increase both the unbaked and baked weights of the clone pizza while maintaining a “slim” overall profile for the pizza. Second, instead of using a blend of the King Arthur bread flour (KABF) and the semolina flour, I used a blend of the KABF and vital wheat gluten (VWG). I replaced enough of the formula flour with VWG to get an effective protein content of 14%, which is typical of a high-gluten flour. To do the calculations, I used November’s Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at
http://foodsim.toastguard.com/. The VWG used was the Hodgson Mill brand of vital wheat gluten. Third, I increased the amount of the three-cheese blend from 8.5 ounces to 9 ounces. While I was at it, I also changed the percentages of the three cheeses in order to emphasize more the flavor of the sharp white New York cheddar cheese. This time, I used 70% low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella cheese, 28% New York sharp white cheddar cheese, and 2% grated Romano cheese. As before, the three cheeses were comminuted into dice form, along with about ˝ teaspoon of dried leaf oregano, in my food processor. Fourth, I slightly increased the amount of pizza sauce (the same composition as before) from 6 ounces to about 6.2 ounces. To summarize, from a quantitative standpoint the ingredients for the pizza looked like this:
Dough: 18 ounces (310.72 g./10.96 oz. KABF and 7.68 g./0.27 oz. VWG) (Note: the VWG = 2.56 t.)
Three-cheese blend (9 ounces): 70% low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese (178.61 g./6.3 oz.); 28% NY sharp white cheddar cheese (71.44 g./2.52 oz.); 2% grated Romano cheese (1 T.)
Pizza Sauce: 6.2 oz./175.78 g.
Pepperoni: 3.07 oz./87 g. (weights are after microwaving the small Hormel pepperoni slices to render some of the fat; the pre-rendering weight was 104 g.)
From the above, it can be seen that the total unbaked pizza weight was 36.27 ounces, or 1028.26 g.
The dough formulation itself, which I prepared using the expanded dough calculating tool at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/expanded_calculator.html, was as follows:
King Arthur Bread Flour/VWG Blend* (100%): Water** (60.8%): IDY (0.375%): Salt (1.5%): Total (162.675%):
| 318.4 g | 11.23 oz | 0.7 lbs 193.59 g | 6.83 oz | 0.43 lbs 1.19 g | 0.04 oz | 0 lbs | 0.4 tsp | 0.13 tbsp 4.78 g | 0.17 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.86 tsp | 0.29 tbsp 517.95 g | 18.27 oz | 1.14 lbs | TF = N/A
|
* The blend includes 310.72 g./10.96 oz. of KABF and 7.68 g./0.27 oz. Hodgson Mill brand of VWG (2.56 t.)
** The water was at 76.4 degrees F
Note: Bowl residue compensation = 1.5%
The dough was prepared almost identically to the last PG clone dough. It came in at a bit over 18 ounces but was trimmed back to 18 ounces. The dough management was also essentially identical to the last PG clone dough. As before, I used the poppy seed trick as described at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6914.0.html and even the expansion behavior of the latest dough was very much the same as with the last dough. As before, the latest dough was cold fermented for about 50 hours, with the dough just about doubling by that time. The last dough also about doubled after 50 hours. This leads me to believe that two days of cold fermentation is a good compromise in terms of handling qualities and good crust performance.
I shaped and stretched the dough out to size, 15”, and placed it onto my 16” pizza screen. As previously described, the 15” size was used to allow for some loss in size during baking. At 18 ounces of dough for the 15” skin, the effective thickness factor is 0.1018592. That is plausibly still on the “thin” side as might be perceived by the person eating the pizza. A slight departure from my last dough is that I used semolina flour on the bench when shaping the dough rather than cornmeal.
The latest dough behaved almost identically to the last one, in terms of elasticity/extensibility and being able to go airborne with it. I also shaped the rim to be thin and with a low profile so that it wouldn’t expand much during baking. As before, I had no problems doing this. The pizza was dressed in the same manner as previously described, and it was baked, while on the screen, on my pizza stone. The stone had been placed on the lowest oven rack position and preheated for about one hour at 475 degrees F. The pizza on the screen was baked on the stone for about 3 minutes, at which time I slid the pizza off of the screen directly onto the pizza stone for about another 3-4 minutes of baking. The finished pizza weighed 930 g./32.80 oz. That represented a loss during baking of about 9.57%. That was a smaller loss than my last PG pepperoni clone pizza. The PG nutrition data for a 14” pepperoni pizza indicates a baked weight of 34.71 ounces. That is a couple of ounces more than the latest pizza. The difference may be due to different ovens being used to bake the pizzas. I might have to try to simulate a deck oven in my home oven to test out this possibility. The finished pizza had a diameter of a bit over 14 ˝”. So, starting out with a larger skin size seems to create a thinner overall profile for the pizza.
The photos below show the finished pizza. Overall, it was excellent. It was quite similar to the last PG pepperoni clone pizza although I could detect the heavier weight of the slices of the latest pizza because of the larger amount of crust. The pizza was also softer at the rim and less chewy, no doubt due to the fact that I did not use semolina flour this time. I also liked the increased presence of the NY sharp white cheddar cheese. At a little over 6 ounces, the sauce was not overpowering in any sense. It was on the watery side to begin with and this may have understated its presence on the pizza. It may also suggest that more sauce can be used without losing the balance of ingredients on the pizza.
There was very little to find fault with with the pizza. It was very good in all respects, from execution of the plan to the finished product. I am looking forward to enjoying the leftover slices over the next few days.
Peter
EDIT (3/4/13): Replaced Calculator link with the current link.