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  

 

Sicilain pizza with a little bit of different mixing method and balling method 8/21/2012

This post is to just explain that I did a little experiment with mixing and balling to see what would happen when using the same formulation and GM Full Strength flour.


I didn’t mixed quite as long and didn’t ball as tight as I usually do when making this Sicilian dough. I usually ball until the dough ball feels a little tight, but this time I just balled when the dough was somewhat limp (that is from the higher hydration dough, in my opinion). This dough is always a little sticky, but this time the dough was more sticky. I wanted to see if when balling not until some of the stickiness went away if the crumb structure would still stay light. I also opened the dough ball when it was still cold right out of the deli case. I am not really sure, but think the crumb structure would be compromised by the not balling as tight. As can be seen the rest of the Sicilian pizza looks about the same, but the crumb structure was tighter. The dough ball fermented well

I don’t really know, but guess that there has to be enough strength in the dough, either while mixing, or while balling for the crumb structure to become lighter. At least that is what I think happened with this dough. I should not have opened the dough ball cold and then proofed. I think if I would have waited until the dough ball warm-up and then panned the dough, then I would have more conclusive results. I think it is interesting even with minor changes that a crumb structure can turn out differently.

The Sicilian pizza tasted the same, but I prefer a more open crumb structure.

I didn’t take any pictures of the dough ball after balling, because at the time, really didn’t think it would matter that much.

Norma  

Another BBQ mod grill pizza 8/19/2012

Well, it was back to the BBQ grill one day cold fermented Lehmann dough again today. I had thought the grill tank propane was low, but wasn’t sure how low it was. I decided to go ahead and try and not change the propane tank. After the grill was supposed to be heating up for an hour, I went outside and wouldn’t you know the tank was out of propane. So it was dragging the full tank of propane around and trying to get the BBQ grill out from the deck. With all the firebricks on the grill the grill is pretty heavy. At least I know I won’t run out of propane for awhile now. I also forgot my IR gun at market, so I have no idea of what temperature the firebricks were when I baked the pizza. This dough was made with Kyrol flour and I didn’t include the sugar this time. This is my same market dough, but without the sugar.



The Lehmann dough ball sat out for an extra hour on the kitchen table because of the grill problem and fermented a little more than I wanted it to.

The one day Lehmann dough pizza was topped with Classcio crushed tomatoes, a blend of Italian Grande cheeses, yellow pear tomatoes. cherry tomatoes and one pepper from my garden. After the pizza was baked fresh basil was applied. I didn’t use anything with the Classico crushed tomatoes and they had a nice bright red color and also a nice flavor with nothing added.


The first picture is of the dough ball after it was hand mixed. I had a little loading error and loaded the pizza a little back too far on the firebricks and it touched the behind firebricks, but other than not being perfectly round it turned out well in my opinion. The crust tasted just about like a Neapolitan crust. The bake time was 3 minutes. Since I don’t have a WFO, but my BBQ grill mod works out okay for me, because I don‘t bake a lot of pizzas outside. What a difference in the taste of this crust compared to when my pizzas are baked in the deck oven.

I think the next time if I try another attempt I will use a thinner TF, or a dough ball that weighs less.

Norma