A baking and gardening journal. Mostly.
by A.J. Coltrane
The Batali Pizza Dough recipe has sort of become my go-to-almost-fast-food-pizza-dough. There’s only 45 minutes of rising time, so dinner can be on the table in an hour.
Here’s one that’s steaming hot out of the oven covered with onions, italian sausage, and red peppers. The sausage got slightly precooked to avoid rawness. The thinly sliced onions and peppers went on raw. There’s also some cheese hiding under the sauce.
By A.J. Coltrane
Mario Batali’s pizza dough recipe here. I used sugar instead of honey, and only 2 tsp of instant yeast, which was plenty. It made a *very* extensible dough that cooked up in 16 minutes at 500F, with a puffy cornicione and a crackerlike interior.
The “light wine” used was Facelli’s Red Table Wine, a blend of Pinot Noir, Merlot, Lemberger, Syrah, Sangiovese, and Cab Franc. I think it added a nice dimension to the crust. Topped with red onion, sopressata, and..a little bit of cream cheese. 
A tasty pie! I may never go back to “regular” pepperoni.
by A.J. Coltrane
The dough:
| Ingredient | Baker’s Percentage | Weight | Approx Volume |
| Bread Flour | 75 | 300g | 2-1/4 cups |
| Wheat Flour | 25 | 100g | 3/4 cup |
| Water | 70 | 280g | 1 cup + 3 TBP |
| Sea Salt | 2 | 8g | 2 tsp |
| Yeast | 2 tsp | 2 tsp | 2 tsp |
| Honey | 1.5 TBP | 1.5 TBP | 1.5 TBP |
The other stuff: 14oz can of tomatoes (I use Muir Glen, in this case Diced Fire Roasted), dried oregano, garlic, red onion, balsamic, cheese (I used havarti and parmesan).
1. Combine the dough ingredients and knead at low speed for 6 minutes. Lightly oil the dough and the bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a towel, and let rise about two hours (about double in size).
2. Lightly oil a pizza pan. (I use a 13″x18″ sheet tray.) Press the dough out to the edges of the pan (or close). Cover with a towel and let rise one hour.
3. Get the toppings ready. Here’s what I did: While the dough is resting, thinly slice 1/2 an onion and cook with a splash of balsamic over low heat until soft. Puree one 14oz can of tomatoes together with 1 tsp dried oregano and two cloves of garlic. Remove the onions from the pan, turn off the heat, add the tomato mixture and let it reduce slightly in the still warm pan.
4. To top the pizza: Start by topping with shredded or sliced cheese, then the tomato mixture, the onion, and finally a generous amount of grated parmesan. Bake at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. I didn’t have pizza-appropriate meat in the house, but that would be good too.
by A.J. Coltrane
A Superbowl sendup on the Roman “Pizza Bianca”, inspired by this recipe, created by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats. He describes his process here. Here’s the photo from Serious Eats:
That sounds good to me, though I don’t have an oven that’s six feet across.
What I do have is a grill that’s 24″ x 18″. It’s my biggest cooking surface, and I thought that for the Super Bowl it’d be fun to make a flatbread the size of the grill.
Here are the two formulas, Kenji’s is the “Original” in the center column (Baker’s Percentage definition here):
| Weight in Grams | Original | Sizeable |
| Flour | 500, Bread Flour | 800, AP Flour |
| Water | 375 | 544 |
| Salt | 10 | 16 |
| Yeast | 5 | 5 |
| Olive Oil | 1/4 cup | 3/8 cup |
| Rosemary | 1 TBP, minced | 1.5 TBP, minced |
| Baker’s Percentage | Original | Sizeable |
| Flour | 100 | 100 |
| Water | 75 | 68 |
| Salt | 2 | 2 |
| Yeast | 1 | 0.63 |
| Olive Oil | 10.6 | 10 |
| Rosemary | 1 TBP, minced | 1.5 TBP, minced |
Kenji’s uses a 75% hydration and an overnight rise, since his is based around the Lahey No Knead recipe. I decided in advance that if I used a hydration that high then I’d be unlikely to get *that* much wet, oily, dough onto the grill without a mishap. I cut back the hydration to a more manageable 68% and allowed for a three day rest in the refrigerator. (My “regular” pizza dough is 60% hydration.)
The recipe:
Use a spatula to combine all of the ingredients above in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap. Leave the dough in the refrigerator for 3 days in total, folding the dough (in the bowl) a couple of times per day. Remove the dough from the refrigerator about 4-5 hours before it’s time to grill. (If the dough is threatening to rise too much then either go ahead and grill it, or fold it again to buy another hour or two.) Flour a work surface and roll the dough out to into a 16″ x 22″ rectangle.
Arrange the dough so the long dimension goes from left to right. Generously brush both the dough, and the back of an inverted sheet pan, with olive oil. Fold the dough in half (left to right) to transfer it to the sheet pan (see below).
Further explanation: The 16″ side of the dough (what *was* the short side) goes lengthwise on the sheet pan, the “long” side of the dough (which is now 11″, because it’s folded in half) sits folded across the short dimension of the sheet pan. The “inside” of the dough has now already been oiled. The bottom on the dough is now sitting on oil. All that remains is to oil the new top. Preheat the grill to medium.
To transfer to the grill: Pick up the dough (still folded in half) and rapidly move it over to the grill, then unfold the dough and carefully try stretch it out a little if it needs it. When the dough stiffens up, shows some color on the bottom, and feels about half cooked then it’s time to flip the monster. I slid a cheap pizza pan under the dough and flipped it over. I used the same pan to remove the finished pizza from the grill — the pan was smaller than the pizza, but it worked ok overall. Hot pads are recommended, the pizza will be lava hot. I used a pizza cutter to score the pizza, to try to make it easier for everyone to tear off a piece. As part of a nice Super Bowl layout this easily fed 10 people with leftovers — it’s basically the same size as two large pizzas, combined.
by A.J. Coltrane
People have been grilling Jim Lahey’s No Knead Bread, that’s not new. From what I’ve found they all put a Le Creuset on a gas grill and cook the bread normally. That doesn’t seem to me to be very far up the “fun” scale. (But who knows, maybe placing an enclosed pot on a grill is a party-and-a-half — I’ll probably try it when it gets hot outside.)
Back to the point: My version of fun involved using the dough for grilled pizza and eating the results.
The recipe is based on Lahey’s No Knead Bread, with a couple of (related) differences. I halved the recipe, but kept the yeast amount the same, and I slowed the fermentation by refrigerating the dough overnight. In total, the dough got about 16 hours in the fridge and 6 hours at room temperature. I also did extra stretch and folds to the dough within the last two hours.
After the rising I oiled a pizza pan and rolled out the dough to about 1/4 – 1/3″. The dough went onto the pizza pan and I oiled the top. The dough was then covered with plastic wrap and allowed to rest for about 90 minutes. While the dough was resting I sauteed super thin slices of red pepper and red onion over medium high heat.
There was no chance this dough was coming off of the pizza pan easily. I put the pizza pan directly onto the medium grill for 2-3 minutes until the dough loosened and I could slide it off onto the grill grates.
After the bottom had nice grill marks I slid the pizza pan back under the dough and flipped it over. The pizza was then topped with a marina heavy on garlic, as well as the red pepper, red onion, and shaved parmesan.
Fin.
The pizza came out with a medium thickness crust that was nice and airy, almost weightless.
I’m going to have to try more high hydration pizzas!
by A.J. Coltrane
I thought it might be fun and good eating to bring rosemary flatbread to the last beer event we attended. It’s basically the Smitten Kitchen pizza recipe, with modifications:
| Smitten Pizza Recipe | This One | |
| Flour | 3 cup | 3 cup |
| Water | 1 cup | 1 cup |
| Yeast | 1.5 tsp | 1 tsp |
| Salt | 2 tsp | 3 tsp |
| Olive Oil | 2 TBP | 2 TBP |
| Rosemary | none | 2 TBP |
I increased the salt, figuring we’d eat it with pretzels and use it to cut the beer. As it turned out there were a lot of stouts at the beer event, so the strong salt/rosemary combo worked out pretty well.
The dough was mixed, then got a four hour rise. At the end of four hours the dough was cut into six pieces.
The dough was then shaped into balls and allowed to rest for another hour. At this point the dough was very “pillowy”.
The dough was then rolled out, brushed liberally on both sides with extra virgin olive oil, and grilled. Olive oil was lightly applied after I took it off of the grill. Then it got a little sea salt.
Overall I think it came out pretty well — one thing I learned is that in the middle of winter, when the grill is cranky and damp, is that the grill needs to preheat for a while to heat up and to burn off whatever moisture is kicking around in there. I didn’t do that, and the bottoms came out with poor grill marks and darker than I would have liked. The light application of olive oil at the end is probably what salvaged it.
In any case, it didn’t last long around our table of seven people at the event — everyone was tearing off hunks of bread — it was a massacre!
by A.J. Coltrane
If this looks familiar, it’s because it is. The recipe this time was something like 1.5 cups AP flour, .5 cups water, 1.5 tsp salt, 1 tsp instant yeast, 1 TBP extra virgin olive oil.
Cell-phone photo taken as the sun was setting by my buddy K, while entertaining K + J.
Process: When the dough was ready I formed it by hand into a loose rectangle. I put some olive oil onto a sheet tray and flipped the dough in the oil to coat both sides. The bread was grilled 3-5 minutes per side over medium heat. The bread was removed to the still vaguely oily sheet pan and topped with additional olive oil, sea salt, and minced rosemary. Easy and delicious!
Late edit: If you look closely you can see one of K+J’s dogs! “Sam” is patiently waiting for something good to drop!
by A.J. Coltrane
Grilled pizza! The dough recipe is here.
Steps:
1. Saute or grill any ingredients that would benefit from advance cooking.
2. Roll the dough out thinly.
3. Lightly oil one side and put the oiled side down on a hot grill. When the bottom is nicely colored remove the pizza from the grill.
4. Lightly oil the top side. Flip the pizza over and dress the “new” (grilled) top side.
5. Return pizza to the grill, close the lid, and cook until the cheese is melted and the bottom looks good. (Fresh basil should be added right at the end — I put it on a little too soon in the picture above.)
by Coltrane
I originally took an interest in pizza dough when my mom got me an Oster bread machine. (Thanks mom.) I began by using the recipe that came with the bread machine. My initial attempts all tasted like cardboard. I started messing with the ratios of water, flour, yeast, oil, and salt. I tried adding and removing varying amounts of sugar or honey.
One of the difficulties with this learning process is that almost every recipe calls for differing amounts each ingredient, and there’s no standardized order of ingredients. It makes it a lot harder to visualize the way that the recipes compare and contrast.
The two charts below are an attempt to give some order, so that it’s easier to see how the recipes differ. All of the recipes have been scaled to ~3 cups of flour. This will make one large, thin-crust pizza or two smaller pizzas. All of the Peter Reinhart recipes are somewhat approximated — his recipes call for 5 cups of flour. I divided those all in half, making for some very odd looking measurements.
|
|
The Links:
Smitten Kitchen “Really Simple”
Smitten Kitchen “Pizza, Updated”
Batali’s Food Network recipe. Note that it calls for 1.5 ounces of fresh yeast. The quantity in the recipe is an approximation of the amount of active yeast required instead.
Peter Reinhart’s American Pie
A yeast conversion chart.
One TBP of table salt = Two TBP of Kosher salt. The recipes above use Kosher salt. Adjust accordingly.
Use unbleached flour. Feel free to try substituting bread flour for all-purpose flour and vice-versa.
What I think I’ve learned:
1. The Oster recipe tasted like cardboard for two main reasons: There’ s very little salt in the recipe and the rise in the machine is fast and warm.
2. The longer the rise, the better the taste. I never let any dough rise at any temperature above about 75-78 degrees. A longer rise lets enzymes work and create more complex flavors.
3. Dough can live in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Ideally it will be removed from the refrigerator for 1-2 hours to take the chill off before use.
4. Read the actual recipes in the links. Every approach is a different and they all can be considered valid.
5. The Mario recipe calls for a lot of yeast and a short rise. There are lots of other flavors happening in that one, masking the short rise.
6. Fats and sugars promote browning and crispness. This applies if they’re in the dough or on the outside of the dough. Try brushing olive oil on the edge of the pizza before or during cooking.
7. One unit of instant yeast = 1.25 units of active yeast. Going the other way, 1 unit of active yeast = .8 units of instant yeast. (Instant yeast is 25% “stronger”.) I prefer instant yeast, as it doesn’t need to be “bloomed” (pre-soaked with water and sugar.) Active yeast should be “bloomed”.
Method:
I’m currently using the “Simple” Smitten Kitchen recipe. I’m not using a pizza stone or anything like that. Here’s my method:
A: Turn oven up to 11. Let the oven preheat at least 10 minutes so that the oven becomes hot, not just the air inside the oven. Longer is better.
B: Lightly oil a sheet pan (or broiler pan). Stretch dough out on the oiled pan. (Optional, brush the dough with a light coating of oil on top.) The oil sort of fries the bottom, helping to give a crisp crust.
C: Add all toppings except cheese. I will often partially saute the toppings in advance as I’m not a fan of raw veggies on a pizza. This is a good way to add more flavor too.
D: Insert the sheet pan on the bottom rack, cook 10 minutes.
E: Open the oven and quickly add the cheese, cook about another 6 minutes. Adding the cheese at the half-way point prevents burning. Turn the pizza at this point if it looks like it’s not browning evenly.
F: Remove and let cool for a couple of minutes to let the pizza set up.
G: Eat!
FlatbreadGarden 