lol, another Mack's attempt 8/21/2012

I didn’t know how to go about changing the last formulation for the dough to try another Mack’s attempt, so I just used the same formulation I attempted the last time, but used a little less sugar. I sure wouldn’t think the little less sugar changed the crust of the attempt I did yesterday, but it seemed like it did. I didn’t change the TF at all. The resulting pizza crust did come out different though. I have no idea why that was, unless I didn’t place the pizza the same place on the deck and didn’t rotate the same, or the sauce and cheese were different. In the last minute of the bake, the pizza was seeming to brown more on the bottom crust than I wanted it to, so it was moved to the top deck. I then even put a screen under the pizza for the last 30 seconds.


This attempt at a Mack’s pizza is the closest I have come so far, at least in Steve’s and my opinions. I used 50/50 Great Lakes sharp cheddar and Nasonville cheddar. The Nasonville cheddar is soft, creamy and without much flavor and the Great Lakes sharp cheddar has the sharper flavor and tang. I know Nasonville does melt well when baked on a pizza, but I don‘t like the way it clumps after grating. The Great Lakes sharp cheddar did help some with the clumping since it was added. I had grated the cheddars on Monday, but then purchased a new cheese yesterday at market. It was Amish butter cheese. I decided not to add it to the blend, but would think if I did it would have given the attempt a buttery flavor. I let Pete taste the Amish butter cheese and it does taste like butter, but I didn’t know how it would melt when baking the pizza. That is why I didn’t try it. We did add a little more than 8 oz. of the cheese blend yesterday.

Steve and I were trying to decide if we should make the sauce a little thicker than last week. We decided to make it a little thicker, but not near as thick as in other attempts. It still squeezed out of the plastic squeeze bottom well. I let Steve decide how much spices to add to the Gangi sauce. He came up with the best taste so far using the Gangi sauce. I think he added about 1 teaspoon of Kosher Morton salt, ½ tsp. of regular pepper and a lot of oregano. That amount was for a bigger amount than what was in the squeeze bottle though. We probably would have had enough sauce for at least ½ of another pizza. When I tasted Steve’s additions to the sauce it tasted just like the sauce on a Mack’s pizza. Great job Steve on the sauce!!

This whole attempt produce a very enjoyable pizza and the taste was almost like a Mack’s pizza. The only thing missing was a little buttery flavor and also a little tang. Other than those two things I would rate this Mack’s attempt successful.

Norma