Hey, everybody. Looks like I'm pretty late to this conversation, but I thought I'd throw in something I think others here might find interesting. A few years ago, I visited a Lou Malnati's location, and made my attempt at replicating their crust at home within a couple of days later. I, too, considered using semolina flour, but I settled on using a flour that I've never heard of anyone on this forum suggesting, and that is pasta flour. I know it sounds a little crazy, but I swear by the stuff in crusts like this, and I think it's something worth experimenting with in pizza dough in general. I felt that my Lou Malnati's 'clone' came off very well on the very first try, and I never really tweaked it after that, because I don't make Chicago deep dish style pizza very often. Anyway, I dug into my old recipes (as in, before I stared using weights and just used volumes), and found my recipe for Chicago deep dish crust a la Lou Malnati's, and here it is:
1 ½ cup pastry flour (preferably) or all-purpose flour
¾ cup pasta flour
¾ cup warm water
¼ cup corn oil
¾ stick (6 Tbsp.) of butter
2 tsp. active baking yeast or 1 package quick-rise yeast
½ tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. sugar
Chill the butter well. Mix all ingredients except butter and knead for no more than five minutes by hand or on low speed in a mixer. Cover the dough in a bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 3 or 4 hours. When you're ready to make your pizza, preheat a baking stone or steel for 30 minutes in your oven at 425 degrees, and use olive oil to grease a 16" deep dish pizza pan (or a 14" pizza pan, and trim excess dough from the rim). Once the baking stone or steel is adequately heated, roll out your dough to the desired diameter, then cut the butter up in very small cubes. Distribute the butter cubes evenly in the pan, then press the dough directly into it, spread the dough as needed to fit the pan, and fill the dough with desired toppings. Place the filled pizza pan on the baking surface, and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until crust is golden brown.
I hope somebody will give this a try and tell me what they think. Trust me, the pasta flour really does the trick nicely in this application. It's not necessarily easy to find in a store, but it's worth seeking out.
