Learning Knowledge to Make Pizza: Milk Kefir Pizza on Slice 1/10/2010

Welcome...

There are so many variables that go into making a PIZZA. The hydration of the dough, flour, yeast and many more.. Amounts of any kind of yeast in a pizza can make a big difference. Most recipes posted on the web, use too much yeast in their recipes. What I have found out so far, is either bulk fermenting the dough or cold fermenting the dough will give a better flavor in the crust. I am still experimenting to find different flavors in the crust of pies. In my opinion pizza is all about the best flavor you can achieve in a crust. I still am on the journey about flavors in the crust. Even differences in temperatures in you home or times of the year can influence how much yeast to use. If you want a pizza to develop flavors in the crust, there are many ways to go about achieving this.

Adventure in Pizza Making

There are many ways to go about trying to make any kind of pizzas you want to create. PIZZA making is fun and also you get to eat your finished product. I learned to make all my pizza on http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php If you look on pizzamaking.com you can see all the beautiful creations of pizzas members make on this site. Members and moderators help members and guests achieve almost any kind of pizzas they want to create. Since joining this site, my pizza making skills have gone from non-existent to something much better. I invite you to take a look at this site.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Milk Kefir Pizza on Slice 1/10/2010

A picture of my pizza was on Slice for “My Pie Monday” posted by Maggie Hoffman.

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/01/my-pie-monday-20110110-homemade-pizza-slideshow.html#show-132412

This is what I emailed to Slice about the pizza I made.

Norma's Dried Tomato Pizza: "I started this pie by making a milk kefir poolish to leaven the dough. I mixed the final dough using different techniques for the higher hydration dough of 80%. Some of this methods came from the Tartine Bread Book for making Chad Robertson’s bread. The dough was stretched and folded at different intervals. The flour mix was 85% Caputo Pizzeria flour and 15% KASL. The star of this pie wasn’t the look of the finished pizza, it was the irregular crumb. This pizza was more of a focaccia, like they offer in different regions of Italy. Usually when using higher hydrations for making bread and different techniques, there are irregular holes in the crumb. Pizza making and bread making can almost go hand in hand in my opinion. The dough for this pizza was room temperature ferment for almost a day, after the final mix. I think because the milk kefir poolish was used, that is why this dough could be room temperature fermented for so long. From the experiments I have done with milk kefir poolishes in a dough, milk kefir takes longer to leaven a dough, than regular a regular IDY poolish, or a poolish using other natural starters. From the long ferment time, there was a better taste in the crust. The higher olive oil, in the formula (3%), also might have given this pizza a lighter texture. This pizza was dressed with herb and garlic infused olive oil, 2 types of mozzarella, hand grated Parmesan, Red Cow Parmesan, asiago cheese, fresh rosemary, and Turkish dried tomatoes. I should have added the moist Turkish dried tomatoes near the end of the bake, because as can be seen, the dried tomatoes did darken too much."—Norma427

I want to thank Slice again for thinking my pizza was worthy of posting on “My Pie Monday!” :)

This pizza was one I posted before and I used milk kefir to leaven this dough. I am still on the trail of trying to make this style of pizza. This style of pizza is harder to make than others, in my opinion.

Norma