Pete-zza's Papa John's Clone Pizza

[johnamus]

I'm going to put a dough together tonight based on Pete-zza's 48 hour clone recipe here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg59217.html#msg59217.

Using the expanded pizza dough calculator I adjusted the pizza size to make a 12" pie instead of the standard 14".  I'll use a poor substitute of EV olive oil since that is the only oil I have right now. I'll also use 1 g of yeast since that is the finest resolution of my scale. I'll mix the water and sugar together then add the yeast and stir, then the remaining ingredients will be added and hand-kneaded until a ball is formed.  I'll use a thickness factor of .13 based on Pete-zza's advice here: http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,16049.msg157289.html#msg157289 

This is what I came up with:

Flour (100%): Water (56.5%): ADY (.14%): Salt (1.75%): Vegetable (Soybean) Oil (7.3%): Sugar (4.8%): Total (170.49%): 248.15 g  |  8.75 oz | 0.55 lbs 140.21 g  |  4.95 oz | 0.31 lbs 0.35 g | 0.01 oz | 0 lbs | 0.09 tsp | 0.03 tbsp 4.34 g | 0.15 oz | 0.01 lbs | 0.78 tsp | 0.26 tbsp 18.12 g | 0.64 oz | 0.04 lbs | 3.99 tsp | 1.33 tbsp 11.91 g | 0.42 oz | 0.03 lbs | 2.99 tsp | 1 tbsp 423.07 g | 14.92 oz | 0.93 lbs | TF = 0.13195

I'm going to use a mixture of 90% (223g) Better for Bread flour and 10% (25g) Semolina flour in order to impart buttery notes to the finished crust.  In pursuit of the same, I'll also use Pete-zza's dustinator clone as bench flour.  I intend to update this post with photos and notes once I have eaten my results.

[norma427]

Pete-zza,

I belong to the demographic you refer to; I joined in 2008 and this will only be my 35th post.  I found the site after it came up in the search results when I was on the hunt for a clone recipe to be used in a family pizza bake-off.  I found the recipe I was looking for, but I also found a forum and small group of talented and experienced pizza enthusiasts such as yourself.  I've often referred back to the site, but most times felt like my knowledge level was too small to add anything of value to the threads.  I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there is a countless number of people out there who haven't posted but have benefited from your trials, a countless number of non-posters who enjoyed the taste of a better pie due only to the fact that you were altruistic enough to share your knowledge and experiences.  

Before the internet age, people with your level of culinary influence and power were those lucky few who appeared on television or print.  But in today's age you and the other PF elite have an influence on the population comparable to the Prosper Montagné's, Urbain Dubois's, and maybe even Julia Child's of the past.  It would be a terrible loss if you were to reduce your activity on these forums; a terrible loss for me personally and honestly a terrible loss for society.  Your posts will be on the internet long after we have all passed away, people who will be born 75 or 100 years from now will be using your recipes and your hard work will put a smile on their faces.  That must be a tremendous feeling, its the type of feeling that led John D Rockeffeler to give away vast amounts to medicine in his lifetime, it's the type of feeling that led Bill Gates to establish his charitable foundation.  I'd venture to say that most of humanity wants to experience that feeling, but few have the means and ability to do so.  You have that ability Pete-zza.  And I sincerely hope you reconsider reducing your activity level on the forums.

-John

John,

That was a very thoughtful post.  I agree, after we all are gone, all Peter's hard work on all his projects will help many people.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

John,

Thank you for your thoughtful remarks. They are much appreciated.

My comments were intended to apply only to the work I have done on reverse engineering and cloning recipes of others. I estimate that there are around 40 clone "projects" on the forum. I have been involved in one way or another in over thirty of them. It is clear that clones are very popular among visitors to the forum as evidenced by the very high page view counts of the clone threads, including this one (five of the ten forum topics with the largest number of page views are clone threads and #11 is also a clone thread). Yet, for all of the time and effort and research that has gone into those projects, it has not resulted in any perceptible broadening of participation of members on the forum or any noticeable increase in forum activity and no appreciable increase in members willing to support the forum through donations. While some members and visitors have benefited, mostly recipe seekers (many of whom register only to search for them), the forum itself has not in my opinion. It is said that Albert Einstein once described insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, it is perhaps timely and fitting that I bring my reverse engineering and cloning efforts to a close even though I had fun doing it and learned a lot from it. I will, of course, continue to work on open cloning projects until they reach closure. And I will post on other matters and topics.

As to what will happen to my posts, and those of other members, is solely in the hands of Steve, the owner of this forum. Life is fragile and things happen that can intervene and dictate future events in unanticipated ways. So, there is no guarantee that a forum like this one survives into perpetuity. The day may come where someone clicks on a link to the forum and gets a Page Not Found message. Hopefully the posts won't vanish into the ethers, but who knows? Or maybe they will end up in the archives of the Wayback Machine.

Peter

[johnamus]

As I mentioned a few replies above (http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg158890.html#msg158890), I made a pie using Peter's Papa John's clone dough.  I added 10% semolina flour and I was pleased with the taste, it imparted a buttery flavor to the crust that replicated the flavor of Papa John's dustinator blend. 

My cheap pizza stone recently cracked after a few years of use, so I purchased a cast iron pizza pan that I employed as a stone replacement.  I placed it on the oven's middle shelf which ended up being one or two shelves too low, as you can see in the photos, my dough received a fair amount of bottom-charring during the parbake and a little too much more during the remainder of the bake.  Even though my oven was set to "Roast", a setting which uses the top broiler element, the cast iron plate baked the bottom of pie too fast for the broiler keep up with baking the top.  I think this indicates that my cast iron plate has good heat retention and transfer properties (at least compared to my old stone), and the next time I make this recipe I'll be sure to raise the pizza up to at least the next higher oven shelf.  The first photo of the bottom of the dough after the par bake you can see Neapolitan style leoparding.  But this is a Papa John's Clone thread and those char patterns are not desired so I digress. For clonings sake I really should purchase a pizza screen.  Photos in this post are of the 40hr old dough ball, the rolled out dough, the top of the parbaked dough, the bottom of the parbaked dough:

[johnamus]

more pics of the finished product.  I'm happy with the oven spring, but you can see the over-char effect resulting from the cast iron being set too low in the last photo.  All in all I was very satisfied with the taste of the pizza, it wasn't a 100% clone but it was very shareworthy.  A tremedous thanks to Pete-zza for sharing his efforts and wisdom, without which I wouldn't have been able to even come close to these modest results.

[freddy_krugerrand]

Is there a master list of all the different papa john recipes?

[Pete-zza]

Is there a master list of all the different papa john recipes?

Freddy,

There is no such list. However, if you scan the threads on the American board at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?board=36.0, you will see where several members attempted PJ clones. In some cases, they used variations of PJ clone recipes and posted their results using those versions. The member who did the most with PJ "clones" before this thread is Randy. He posted his PJ clone recipes in several different places over time, including at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,5721.0.html and at Reply 19 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1698.msg15290.html#msg15290. I converted Randy's original PJ clone recipe to baker's percent format in the opening post of the thread at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,1707.msg15310.html#msg15310. From that post, you will see that Randy was quite close on the PJ thickness factor, although at the time I entered that post I did not know what thickness factor PJ was using.

If you scan the American board (there are only seven pages of threads) and/or do a forum search, you should be able to put together your own list of PJ clone recipes. If you do, please share your list with the rest of the members.

Peter

[Pizzalovingal]

I plan to make a clone of this recipe when I get my new  performated disk pan in -  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197

It appears people use pizza screens for this recipe for the most part so I will post my results with this pan. 

Perhaps a dumb question, but I just got a new oven that offers convection baking - in this recipe, it states: "lowest oven rack position, at around 500 degrees" - is this using convecting baking or the "regular" oven baking?

Thanks!

[Pete-zza]

I plan to make a clone of this recipe when I get my new  performated disk pan in -  http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197

It appears people use pizza screens for this recipe for the most part so I will post my results with this pan. 

Perhaps a dumb question, but I just got a new oven that offers convection baking - in this recipe, it states: "lowest oven rack position, at around 500 degrees" - is this using convecting baking or the "regular" oven baking?

Pizzalovingal,

I use only the "regular" oven bake (my oven doesn't have the convection feature). I have never used a perforated disk for the PJ clones so you may have to make some adjustments for its use in a standard home oven. Basically, that means watching the bottom and top of the pizza to get the right color balance.

Good luck. You picked the hardest of the PJ clones to make.

Peter

[CDNpielover]

I made Pete's 2-day dough last night, and it turned out EXCELLENT.  I also used his PJ clone sauce.  This pie is very close to what you would get from Papa Johns, and is certainly on the same level in terms of quality.  A couple of things I noticed is that the dough seemed to be a lot "lighter" than what I remember papa john's being - although I haven't had it in quite some time.  I'm not sure if this is due to the flour that I used, which was Robin Hood brad flour (available in Canada).  I also used quite a bit of this for bench flour (didn't make a dustinator clone), and thus has a coating of powdery flour on the outside of the dough.  I didn't really notice this when eating the pizza, but i could feel it on my fingers and it also left the crust looking a sad, dusty grey.   

I had actually made this once before, however IIRC I didn't oil or season the pan I cooked it on and thus the crust stuck to the pan, and it was kinda ruined (we still managed to eat most of it, but it's not the same). 

At any rate, Pete has come up with an outstanding formulation here.  I will certainly be making this one more, and in my pizza rotation I think it will replace the position previously held by the Lehmann NYC-style.   

[Pete-zza]

CDNpielover,
 
I'm glad you liked the recipe.

Papa John's does not use a two-day dough. Their dough balls (refrigerated) are delivered to their stores twice a week and are intended to last from about five days to nearly eight days. As best I can tell, some years ago PJ changed flours and went to a flour that is lower in protein. That flour is milled exclusively for them. They also use conveyor ovens. These differences help explain why it is hard to exactly replicate a Papa John's pizza in a typical home environment. The 5-8 day PJ clone dough takes a long time to execute. The two-day version was a compromise solution. I would say that the two-day version is the most popular of all the PJ clone doughs in this thread.

The PJ clone pizza sauce formulation was the best I could do working only from an ingredients list and without knowing for sure which Stanislaus tomato product is at the heart of the PJ pizza sauce.

Peter

[Pizzalovingal]

Pizzalovingal,

I use only the "regular" oven bake (my oven doesn't have the convection feature). I have never used a perforated disk for the PJ clones so you may have to make some adjustments for its use in a standard home oven. Basically, that means watching the bottom and top of the pizza to get the right color balance.

Good luck. You picked the hardest of the PJ clones to make.

Peter

Thank you!  I just got my pans from Pizza Tools!  I am making a thin crust pizza tonight and plan to make this recipe soon.  I discovered the King Arthur flour I bought from WM is NOT the protein loaded kind (just 4%) so now I'm wondering where to get high protein flour.  I might have to try a "real" food store (not Wal-Mart).

[apizza]

Grams is not %. KAAP is 11.7% protein, which will work for a lot of baking including some pizzas. Look for %, not grams. I say use it up, since you payed for it. Hope this helps.
Marty

[CDNpielover]

CDNpielover,
 
I'm glad you liked the recipe.

Papa John's does not use a two-day dough. Their dough balls (refrigerated) are delivered to their stores twice a week and are intended to last from about five days to nearly eight days. As best I can tell, some years ago PJ changed flours and went to a flour that is lower in protein. That flour is milled exclusively for them. They also use conveyor ovens. These differences help explain why it is hard to exactly replicate a Papa John's pizza in a typical home environment. The 5-8 day PJ clone dough takes a long time to execute. The two-day version was a compromise solution. I would say that the two-day version is the most popular of all the PJ clone doughs in this thread.

The PJ clone pizza sauce formulation was the best I could do working only from an ingredients list and without knowing for sure which Stanislaus tomato product is at the heart of the PJ pizza sauce.

Peter

Oh just to be clear I wasn't complaining or saying it was inferior to a PJ pie - you did a great job!  i think the differences were probablly due to me not being a very experiences pizza maker LOL.

[ggrashow]

Pete...... so now it's almost 4 months and I'm replying.  For some reason, I didn't find your response back in July.  I've been using the recipe as a favorite since I posted back in June.  Flour (100%), water (56.5%), IDY (0.14%), salt (1.75%), vegetable oil (7.3%), sugar (4.8%), total (170.49%).  Lately, I've been making a double batch each time.  I freeze half.  The frozen dough doesn't work as well as the fresh dough, but it still works pretty well.  I've got a double batch in the refrigerator now and I added 4 tbsp of wheat gluten to the mix.  I'd like to be able to toss the pizza dough and am hoping that this will help.  The dough that I've been making is easily shaped into a crust.  It's almost too loose to toss.  You mentioned adding some ascorbic acid to the mix.  How much do you add and what does it do to the dough?

Thanks again for a stupendous dough recipe.  It's been getting rave reviews since June......Gary, New Hampshire

[Pete-zza]

Oh just to be clear I wasn't complaining or saying it was inferior to a PJ pie - you did a great job!  i think the differences were probablly due to me not being a very experiences pizza maker LOL.

CDNpielover,

Please know that I did not take your comments as complaints. I was just trying to point out some of the challenges involved in taking what Papa John's does in a commercial environment and replicating it in a home environment. I am always trying to close the gap between what Papa John's does and what we can realistically do in a home environment, whether it is finding a better retail-level flour to use, using a better thickness factor and more accurate baker's percents, or better ways of baking the clone pizzas in a standard home oven. There will always be some gaps, but I think it is possible to nonetheless come up with PJ clone pizzas that home pizza makers can enjoy, hopefully more than the real thing. I actually think that we have an advantage over PJs in the cheese department. PJ uses a highly commercialized pizza cheese product (from Leprino's) that I believe is not as good as what we can use in our home versions of their pizzas.

Peter

[Pete-zza]

Pete...... so now it's almost 4 months and I'm replying.  For some reason, I didn't find your response back in July.  I've been using the recipe as a favorite since I posted back in June.  Flour (100%), water (56.5%), IDY (0.14%), salt (1.75%), vegetable oil (7.3%), sugar (4.8%), total (170.49%).  Lately, I've been making a double batch each time.  I freeze half.  The frozen dough doesn't work as well as the fresh dough, but it still works pretty well.  I've got a double batch in the refrigerator now and I added 4 tbsp of wheat gluten to the mix.  I'd like to be able to toss the pizza dough and am hoping that this will help.  The dough that I've been making is easily shaped into a crust.  It's almost too loose to toss.  You mentioned adding some ascorbic acid to the mix.  How much do you add and what does it do to the dough?

Gary,

I'm glad to hear that the PJ clones have been working out well for you and that you are getting good reviews. You have been using the PJ clone recipe that is perhaps closest to the real thing but perhaps the hardest to execute successfully in a home environment. Where Papa John's has an advantage is that it is better able to control the temperature of its dough balls from its commissaries to its stores than you are able to do with a standard home refrigerator. Studies by companies that sell home refrigerators indicate that there are about 35-50 door openings a day on average for a typical two- or three-person household, with the duration of the door openings being from about 7-21 seconds. That environment is not the best for dough ball that are intended to last for up to eight days in the refrigerator, even if one places the dough balls in the back of the refrigerator away from the door. You may even experience more fermentation of the dough balls with increased extensibility. A better place to hold the dough balls would be a spare refrigerator that gets less traffic on a daily basis.

In your case, I do not believe that adding vital wheat gluten (VWG), or using more of it, is going to help with the extensibility issue. My advice would be to lower the amount of oil and, to compensate for the loss of some potential tenderness of the finished crumb, increase the amount of sugar. You might try around 5.5% oil and about 6% sugar. If you decide to make those changes, please let me know how they turn out. You will also want to use a thickness factor of around 0.12992-0.13317, along the lines as discussed earlier in this thread at Reply 311 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg156236.html#msg156236.

I am not surprised by the degraded performance of the frozen versions of the PJ clone dough balls. Freezing causes permanent damage to the yeast cells (as water freezes and expands). This damage is significant when you consider that there is only 0.14% yeast (IDY) to begin with. You would have to dramatically increase the amount of yeast in order to be able to sacrifice some of it to the harmful effects of freezing. Even then, you perhaps shouldn't freeze the dough balls for more than about ten days if you have a standard freezer compartment that has a cyclical defrost feature. If you want to make frozen versions of your PJ clone dough balls, you should use maybe triple the amount of yeast and, after a brief period of room temperature fermentation, go directly to the freezer. Of course, this means having to make a separate batch of dough balls, not just taking your regular dough balls and freezing them.

With respect to your question about ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), you can read the reasons for using ascorbic acid in the forum's Pizza Glossary at http://www.pizzamaking.com/pizza_glossary.html#A. In Papa John's case, I believe that the main reason for using ascorbic acid in their dough is as a dough conditioner that is intended to be a substitute for bromates that are most often used in commercial flours. None of the big pizza chains, including Papa John's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, etc., use bromated flours. That is because they do business in California, where there are very strict notice requirements for those who use bromates, which are deemed to be carcinogenic. Using nonbromated flours avoids the California problem altogether, even though is is generally regarded that ascorbic acid is not a particularly effective substitute for bromate (potassium bromate). In those cases where ascorbic acid is used in a particular flour, the usage level is around 30-50 parts per million. At the home level, one might use a pinch of ascorbic acid. I have tried doing that but did not notice a difference in the results. I would have to do a fair amount of experimenting to learn more about the benefits, if any, of using ascorbic acid in a PJ clone dough. Since my kitchen is not set up to do scientific experiments, it is unlikely that I will pursue the use of ascorbic beyond just using a pinch of it now and then and assessing its potential effects.

Peter

[ggrashow]

Hi Peter.............We just made a pizza from the double batch of dough I added (4) tbsp of wheat gluten too.  I was the best yet.  I don't know if it was the wheat gluten or the extra day on refrigeration (6 days this time). 

I do a few things differently in putting the pizza together.  Olive oil is brushed on the screen as well as the top side of the pizza rim.  Cheddar Cheese was sprinkled on the rim along with some of the mozzarella and I start with a little fresh Parmesan under the sauce layer.  It makes for some great flavors.

What do you think?

Gary from New Hampshire

[Pete-zza]

Gary,

There is a pizza chain in the Northeast part of the country called Papa Gino's that uses a three-cheese blend on its pizzas that comprises low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese, aged cheddar cheese (I believe that it is a mild white cheddar cheese), grated Romano cheese and oregano (http://www.papaginos.com/nutrition.html?topic=ingredients). You used your cheeses differently on your PJ clone but I often thought that a Papa John's pizza might benefit from use of a multi-cheese blend inasmuch as I am not a big fan of the pizza cheese that PJ uses even though I can appreciate that it is difficult for a chain with thousands of stores to use a less commercial cheese product. I think that substituting grated Parmesan cheese for grated Romano cheese would also make for a nice cheese blend when used with the other cheeses.

If you used the PJ clone recipe at Reply 2 at Reply 2 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197, but for a double batch, that would mean that your flour/VWG blend had a protein content of about 15.3-15.4% (according to the Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/). That is considerably higher than the protein content of the flour that PJs uses for its pizzas (below 14%). However, if you liked the pizza with that amount of VWG, that is all that matters. But, it is possible that your improved results were more attributable to the extra day of cold fermentation than to the added amount of VWG. You would have to repeat the experiment without the VWG to have a better idea.

Peter

[BardParker]

Hybrid Clone - Fiery Hawaiian

My most recent favorite Pizza store pizza is Dominos Fiery Hawaiian.  It is not available in all stores however.  I have recently started making the Pete-zza's clone recipes.  I I have made all 3 versions: Fast, 2-Day, "original".  I usually make a 5-6 pizza batch.  I am on my 5th batch of the original 5-day clone.  Since the pizza I have made is a part clone of Dominos and part clone of Papa Johns it qualifies as a TRUE HYBRID.

This batch was made almost exactly as described in reply #2 http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6758.msg58197.html#msg58197.  The one exception is that I used a Pendleton Pizza blend flour - not premix - for this batch.  The dough was mixed in a Berkel 10 quart planetary mixer.  Dough balls were divided weighed, rolled,  placed on trays with loose fitting covers and placed in the garage refrigerator (not disturbed much) for 5 days.  The dough was removed 2 hrs prior to expanding and the covered trays were placed on a rack over a warm surface. Then the dough is formed in the manner of Papa John's using clone dustinator blend, pressing out and creating a rim, rotating radial stretch, docking, hand tossing and placing on pizza peel.  My pizza peel has circles drawn onto it so I can approximate a 14" pizza. 

The pizza is dressed with:
1. PJ clone pizza sauce (as described) using Wal -Mart Great Value Tomatoes 5.5 - 6  oz (I used to measure - now I approximate)
2. Wal-Mart Part Skim Mozzarella grated: - cut into tiny cubes with food processor.  85% of the cheese I add before the toppings and the remaining 15% last.
3. Chopped Ham pieces (Usually a Honey Ham from Safeway)
4. Kirkland (Costco) crumbled bacon bits - not too heavy
5. Mezzetta Roasted Bell Peppers - sliced and diced into 5mm x 10mm pieces
6. Star Sliced Jalapenos -  quartered
7. Pineapple pieces (tidbits)- I use these because they come in smaller pieces out of the can.  I press them between 2 towels to dry a bit
6. Ashanti (from Safeway) chicken wing sauce (I like this more than some hotter brands): drizzled on in a spiral pattern.
7. Remaining 15% Mozzarella - extending onto the undressed rim.

The pizza peel is covered with dustinator but the pizza usually needs to be broken loose with a few back and forth jerks before placing into the oven to prevent toppings from falling off onto the hot surface - any toppings that fall off breaking loose are replaced onto pizza.

I cook on a thin pizza stone - about 1/2" stone.  My 2" granite stone (left over from a bathroom counter job) broke and wont fit in my new oven.   I baked the pizza at 550f for 8 minutes.  I have baked on a screen but have not had results as good as the stone.

I let it cool for a few minutes, slice and place on a perforated pan.  I usually make 3 pizzas in rapid sequence and then they are consumed by myself and family.  Any remaining slices are left out on the counter and there is usually none left to put in the refrigerator by bedtime.

I love the Pete-zza original clone.  It takes a bit of discipline to make it and wait 5 days.  Saturday is my mix day - I mix a 6 pizza batch and then make pizza Thurs-Sat. The sauce is made in batches and sealed in Mason Jars ready for pizza day.

I am very happy with this HYBRID Fiery Hawaiian pizza.
Next I will have to do a side by side taste comparison.

Brent