Mellow Mushroom another attempt with frozen dough ball 10/04/2011

The experimental MM# 2 dough went well, in terms of the dough not being extensible, and the pie being tasty.  I let the dough ball warm up for 1 ½ hrs, until the dough ball reached 56.8 degrees F.  It was cooler at market this week.

Steve and I had to get ready again for this experimental pie.  The stickers were placed on the cutting board, I applied one tattoo and we got the signs ready.  Steve and I put the pictures I had printed out on the Plexiglas.  Steve brought a bottle of home brewed beer, so we would be like MM and have beer.  He brought some kind of Belgian Strong Ale called something like Dieu Du Ciel, meaning “sample of heaven”, but I can’t get the first name of the beer spelled right, because I am not familiar with home brewed beers.  There were two supermen on the pictures, one being Peter, and the other superman was the shroom.  They both were watching what we were doing.

The dough ball did stretch out very nicely, and could be tossed and twirled.  I did tossed and twirl the skin, but I am still throwing vertical.  Steve did take a video of me tossing and twirling the skin.

The MM# 2 skin was dressed with my regular tomato sauce, spinach, apple sausage, salami (I had baked in the oven) and part skim milk mozzarella.  The pie was baked in 5 ½ minutes at about 525 degrees F.  Then melted butter with garlic powder and parmesan cheese was applied, after the pie came out of the oven.

The only part of this experiment that didn’t go well, was there was no more sweetness in the crust than my last attempts.  The pizza and the beer did go well together though.

Video of me trying to toss and twirl the dough. Lol, I am not a good tosser or twirler!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beBtRT_7Cew

Norma

Dough and Pizza with the Dry Malt DME-B product 10/04/2011

The dough with the Dry Malt DME-B product was made into a pizza.  The dough handled so beautifully and easily stretched to a 18” pizza, even though I only wanted to open the skin to 16”. The dough could have been tossed and twirled, but I didn’t open it that way.  The finished pizza was crisp on the bottom crust, and slightly crisp on the rim, with a fairly moist crumb.  The only thing Steve and I didn’t like about this experimental pizza was there didn’t seem to be much of any taste in the crust, even though I basically used a Lehmann dough formula with added DME-8 dry malt.  The dough was almost cold fermented for two days.  The characteristics I did like using the DME dry malt, was the crisp bottom crust and the slightly crisp rim.  I wonder what should be my next experiment with the DME-B Dry Malt product to find if I can produce a better pizza.

Norma

Mellow Mushroom Pizza Attempt with 6" pizza and ADM 4000 DMP 10/02/2011

I made another attempt at a Mellow Mushroom pizza, this time for only a 6" pizza because I wanted to try out the ADM 4000 DMP product to see if the crust would get browner and also how the products would affect the taste of the crust in sweetness.


The small dough ball seemed okay to open and didn’t seem nearly as wet as my dough ball did on Tuesday.  The MM# 1 DMP attempt was dressed with Les’s sauce, Grande mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and peppers that I went outside and picked for this pie.  After the bake, the rim was brushed with melted butter with garlic powder, then Red Cow’s Parmesan cheese was sprinkled on the rim.

I took some pictures outside so it can be seen better how dark the dough ball was, and also how dark the crust was.

The crust and rim were crisper on this attempt than my other attempts were.  The pie took about a little over 5 minutes to bake at a little over 500 degrees F on my pizza stone, placed on the bottom rack of my home oven. The crust wasn’t as sweet as my last two attempts at market, but did have a great taste.  Overall I liked this attempted MM pie much better than my other attempts.  The rim inside was moist.


Norma

WFO Party at Steve's Home and all the Pies 10/1/2011

I was invited to Steve's home for a party with his home brewing club and to make pizza in his WFO.  Steve, his friends, and I all made dough to bake in Steve's WFO.

The first pictures are of the pies I made from my doughs.


I used Craig’s method and used the Ischia starter for the one dough I made.  For the other dough, I had wanted to use John’s (dellavechia) Keste’s clone, but I went to three supermarkets and they all said now they have stopped carrying cake yeast, because the cake yeast has to be thrown away too much.  I could have gone to a supermarket much farther away, but I didn’t have the time to do that, so I just used John’s formula, but substituted the Ischia starter in the formula.  I also wanted to make some other doughs posted by members, but my time was limited to try them out.  I want to thank anyone that gave me ideas for the Neapolitan pies, even though I didn’t get to try all the ideas out.  I need more practice in making Neapolitan doughs, because my Neapolitan pies didn’t turn out like some of the members that do make Neapolitan pies here on the forum.  Since it was dreary and raining most of the time at Steve’s yesterday, some of the home brewing club didn’t show-up because the weather was not the nicest day to be outside.

Two of Steve’s friends bought their own doughs.  Both of their doughs sure were different than any other doughs I have seen before.  His one friend brought dough that he made a few hours earlier and just mixes and let it develop itself. Something like a no-knead dough. It can been seen in the glass jar. That dough sure was lively.  That friend rolled his dough and then stretched it.  It sure could be stretched nicely. He then formed a rim by rolling the rim. I found that interesting.  His dough makes more like a flatbread pizza.  He also made , many of his own dressings, which all were great.  This friend uses some kind of flour with wheat germ in the flour, that he buys from an Amish store in our area. I think the wheat germ can be seen in the one picture of the dough.  He also used cornmeal on the peel to launch his pies.  I would have thought his pies would have burnt on the bottom, but they didn’t.

Steve’s other friend that made dough also uses a much different dough than a Neapolitan dough.  He is the man that first bakes the pizza on one side, then dresses the pie, then puts it back into the oven again.  He also made a lot of his own dressings, including one with figs, and another with apple sausage he made himself.  The apple sausage was delicious.

Sorry, I didn’t get to take pictures of all the pies that were made yesterday.  What a great pizza day, to be able to get to try out so many kinds of different pizzas.  Members of the brewing club, did also bring salads, grilled food on Steve’s BBQ grill, and also brought different desserts.  I sure ate way to much pizza and other foods yesterday.

Steve’s WFO was mostly in the 800 degrees in temperature when the different pies were baked.  The bake times still were quick.  There were 4 tents set-up to keep people out of the rain and also to help keep the pizzas and DJ equipment from getting wet.

I had left over doughs, as did others.  I froze my doughs and might try to use some in the deck oven to try and make greek pizza, or might also try one for a regular pizza.  I don’t think the regular pizza will turn out well, because my deck oven isn’t hot enough to use with Caputo flours.

Norma