It's incredibly disappointing to have a mediocre bake...and concerning that there's a chance I wont be able to repeat my prior 2 amazing bakes
First, given this was the first time using bromated flour, I'll give my impressions of All Trumps. It was good - it stretched nicely, baked nicely and ate nicely. But, it wasn't materially different than what I've been recently achieving with King Arthur. (The crust did seem a little thicker than usual, despite using my usual amount, but who knows...there's too many variables to conclude anything.) I don't think I'm compelled to use it again. Glad to cross this one off the list.
But the sauce stunk! This happened to me previously, where I describe it as tasting like lemon juice. No noticeable salt, sugar, garlic, onion, oregano or basil...just lemon
What was different in my sauce was that this was a new can of Alta Cucina. Last time I had this issue it was a new can too, and I think I ended up tripling the sugar next time and it worked. But I've stayed at that triple sugar amount, so now I guess I'll put even more. (All other elements were essentially the same as the last bake. Half cooked sauce etc.)
Potenital reasons for the bad sauce in descending order of liklihood
- new can of Alta Cucia more tart that the last one
- the Alta Cucina wasn't frozen first
- my fresh basil was half dead and therefore didnt have any flavor
- the undercrust was thicker and impacted the sauce bake
- my fresh basil was half dead and had bitter/tart flavor
Next time I guess I'll add more sugar. I'll search my thread for "lemon" to find the last time this happened.
