Old Dough Recipe

[MaNue]

Hope this is the right spot to share a recipe.
Im not a professional pizza maker or even a good baker in general, but I just wanted to share a pizza dough recipe that has been in our family a long time. My Grandmother was born in 1922 and this is her Mother's recipe, so I don't know exactly how old the recipe is or if it has changed over the years.

I came from a large family and back in the day my Grandmother would bake pizza like mad. Every family event, sure enough there would be lots of pizza present. After her death my Aunt took over as the main pizza supplier.  After the death of my Aunt, I aquired the recipe. Now the in house demand for this pizza on a large scale is non existent due to the lack of living people.

Forgive the structure of the recipe as I copied it from her index card.  I just thought this would be the best place to share a good recipe with like minded people.  Not sure of the sizes, but the recipe always made two thin round pizza or one thick square one.  The taste and texture is very close to PH. Hopefully you enjoy.

1 - Cup Whole Milk
3 – Tbsp White Sugar
1 – Tbsp Salt
2 – Tbsp Butter
1 – Cup Warm Water
2 – Pkg Yeast
4 ¾ - Cups White Flour



Scald milk in small pot over medium flame.  Remove milk from heat and stir in Salt, Sugar, & Butter till dissolved.  In a large mixing bowl add 1 Cup of warm water and 2 Pkg Yeast, stir till dissolved.  Add the luke warm milk mixture to the water & yeast.  Gradually mix in flour, once all flour is added, mix for 2 minutes using stand mixer or by hand.  Cover bowl and place in a warm spot to rise for 40 – 50 minutes.  Remove dough from bowl and kneed before using.

[Randy]

Very interesting recipe.   Do you remember what pizza sauce they used and what toppings?

[MaNue]

Very interesting recipe.   Do you remember what pizza sauce they used and what toppings?

It was a wet dough so they were always baked on pans.  As for sauce, my Grandmother always used crushed tomatoes, basil, sugar, and salt. My Aunt used the same, but she sometimes used different store bought sauces too. 

The pizzas were topped with a variety of items which included anchovies & black olives, sausage & onion, pepperoni, and just cheese.

[RockyMountainPie]

Manue,

Thanks very much for sharing your family's old dough recipe.

I have a special interest in old family recipes.  It's great to preserve these bits of our culture as time passes.

I took a stab at trying to convert this recipe to baker's percentages in case anyone wants to try making it.  As always, when converting from volume into weight, certain assumptions have to be made, and the final product may not end up exactly as you remember, but hopefully it will get us in the ballpark and allow for fine tuning the recipe.  If anyone else has other ideas about how to do this conversion, I'd be very interested.

I used a website called: calculateme.com to come up with these assumptions:

4.75 cups of flour = 570 g (this is highly dependent on how the flour is "scooped")
1 cup of water = 236.59 g
2 Packets of Activated Dry Yeast = 14g
1 Tbsp of Regular salt = 18 g
3 Tbsp White Sugar = 37.5g
1 cup Whole Milk = 242 g (I think that the scalding process will evaporate some of this liquid)
2 Tbsp Butter = 28.38 g

I decided to consider making a "thick" rectangular pizza and soon realized that this amount of dough would make a very large pizza.
The size will be a "half sheet" sized pan since this 13" x 18" sized pan is quite common and could have been used by your grandmother to make her pizza.
In order to make the ingredients fit this size of pan, I came up with a thickness factor (TF) of  0.173

So the finished recipe comes out be:

Flour (100%):       578.9 g  |  20.42 oz | 1.28 lbs
Water (40.3%):    233.3 g  |  8.23 oz | 0.51 lbs
ADY (2.4%):       13.89 g | 0.49 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.68 tsp | 1.23 tbsp
Salt (3.1%):       17.95 g | 0.63 oz | 0.04 lbs | 3.22 tsp | 1.07 tbsp
Sugar (6.25%):    36.18 g | 1.28 oz | 0.08 lbs | 9.08 tsp | 3.03 tbsp
Milk (fresh) (41.3%): 239.08 g | 8.43 oz | 0.53 lbs | 15.94 tbsp | 1 cups
Butter (4.9%):       28.37 g | 1 oz | 0.06 lbs | 6 tsp | 2 tbsp
Total (198.25%):   1147.66 g | 40.48 oz | 2.53 lbs | TF = 0.173

The weights of the ingredients come out pretty close to assumptive weights and the percentages of the ingredients are not unreasonable.  With an effective hydration above 80%, it's definitely a wet dough and that is in keeping with your description.

For 2 14" thinner pizzas, the recipe would look something like this:

Flour (100%):       572.35 g  |  20.19 oz | 1.26 lbs
Water (40.3%):       230.66 g  |  8.14 oz | 0.51 lbs
ADY (2.4%):       13.74 g | 0.48 oz | 0.03 lbs | 3.63 tsp | 1.21 tbsp
Salt (3.1%):       17.74 g | 0.63 oz | 0.04 lbs | 3.18 tsp | 1.06 tbsp
Sugar (6.25%):    35.77 g | 1.26 oz | 0.08 lbs | 8.97 tsp | 2.99 tbsp
Milk (fresh) (41.3%): 236.38 g | 8.34 oz | 0.52 lbs | 15.76 tbsp | 0.98 cups
Butter (4.9%):       28.04 g | 0.99 oz | 0.06 lbs | 5.93 tsp | 1.98 tbsp
Total (198.25%):   1134.68 g | 40.02 oz | 2.5 lbs | TF = 0.13
Single Ball:      567.34 g | 20.01 oz | 1.25 lbs


I hope this helps others to give the recipe a try.  I know I will. 

-- Tim

[Stryda]

Any Pics? 

[RockyMountainPie]

I made this pizza over the weekend.  The crust came out light and crispy with a rich, buttery flavor.

This pizza was a 14" round using this formulation:

Ceresota All Purpose Flour (100%):  286.17 g  |  10.09 oz | 0.63 lbs
Water (40.3%):                         115.33 g  |  4.07 oz | 0.25 lbs
IDY (2.4%):                                 6.87 g | 0.24 oz | 0.02 lbs | 2.28 tsp | 0.76 tbsp
Salt (3.1%):                                 8.87 g | 0.31 oz | 0.02 lbs | 1.59 tsp | 0.53 tbsp
Sugar (6.25%):                         17.89 g | 0.63 oz | 0.04 lbs | 4.49 tsp | 1.5 tbsp
Milk (fresh) (41.3%):                 118.19 g | 4.17 oz | 0.26 lbs | 7.88 tbsp | 0.49 cups
Butter (4.9%):                                14.02 g | 0.49 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.97 tsp | 0.99 tbsp
Total (198.25%):                        567.34 g | 20.01 oz | 1.25 lbs | TF = 0.13

A few notes: 
1. Upon mixing the ingredients with the flour, the dough was about the consistency of pancake batter, so I slowly incorporated about 70 grams (or about 25% of previous total) of flour into the bowl while it was mixing.  If you make this recipe you will likely also have to add additional flour.   

2. I only had 1% skim milk in my refrigerator so I used about 115 g of milk and added 3 grams of heavy cream to it to simulate whole milk.

3. I used IDY instead of ADY as the recipe called for and didn't make much effort to convert the amount.  I used about 6.8 g of IDY

4. I let the dough mixture proof in the bowl for a couple hours before moving it to the pan.  I coated the bottom of the pan generously with lard before adding the dough.  Once in the pan I let it proof again for a couple more hours before topping the pizza. (see pics)

5.  Even with the additional flour, the dough is very wet and fragile.  Put oil on your fingers to help push the dough to the pan's edges.  You can't spread the sauce around with a ladle as you would with some pizzas.  Instead I would recommend using a large spoon to carefully apply dollops of sauce. 

6.  The pizza took a long time to bake.  Total time was about 40 minutes at 475 degrees F.  I did take the pizza out after about 20 minutes and added some Boar's Head pepperoni and I took it out several times to check it so that probably added to my bake time due to heat loss while opening the oven door.  The top actually browned fairly quickly but the sides looked raw for quite a while, so I covered the pizza with a large sheet of aluminum foil so the top would not get overdone while I waited for the rest of the pizza to finish baking.

7. A lot of moisture came off the bottom of the pie after I removed it from the pan, so if you do remove it from the pan, be sure to have a cooling rack handy and if possible, elevate the cooling rack so it is at least 1 inch higher than your counter top.

8. Thanks again to Manue for sharing his family's recipe.

[RockyMountainPie]

More: