A few more toppings for Detroit style pizzas and an experiment with a week old dough ball

I had been making larger batches of the Detroit style doughs the last three weeks.  I am not sure how much dough to make for this time of the year, when the temperatures swing so much and also since it rains some Tuesdays.  I did have one left over dough ball from last Tuesday and just let it sit in the deli case until this past Monday to see what it looked like.  I had a little extra dough leftover from scaling Monday, so I took the week old dough ball out of the deli case on Monday.  The dough ball was very wet and clammy and had slumped a lot.  It still looked like it had a some fermentation bubbles though, so I just balled the extra piece of dough with the week old dough ball.  The dough ball then became normal in feel.  I tried that dough ball out at the end of yesterday to see if when using a dough ball with a higher than normal weight and also a mixed dough ball would rise in the bake.  Vermont smoked pepperoni and peppered smoked bacon were added as the toppings.  I should have applied the Vermont smoked pepperoni in the middle of the bake, because it wanted to brown too much, but I was more interested if this dough would rise right in the bake.  It did rise normally in the bake, but I found it interesting that the rim crust didn’t get those extra crispy caramelized edges, I guess that was from the higher height when the cheese melted along the sides of the steel pan.  The bottom crust did get browner and crisper though.  At least I found out that old dough can be added to freshly made dough and it still rises well in the bake.  The taste of the crumb really didn’t improve any in flavor though.

I did season my steel pans the last two weeks after baking in them.  The one photo shows what my steel pans look like after the seasoning yesterday.  The pizzas are a lot easier to remove after the seasonings.  I don’t know if I will have to season the steel pans every week now, or if they will be okay for awhile.

I tried a veggie pizzas three different ways yesterday.  The first bake had no sauce, the second bake had pretty much sauce and the third baked had a little sauce.  I think I like the third bake better.  Customers seem to like the veggie Detroit style pizzas.  I had purchased a big bag of spinach for .75, a bunch of broccoli for .50 and 3 colors of peppers at market yesterday for .50 a piece.  It doesn’t cost much to purchase veggies at market.  This was the first time I added the broccoli to the spinach on the dough first before the cheese and other toppings.  This style of pizza lends itself well to many toppings.

I also tried out one other kind of topping pizza yesterday.  The sausage was applied raw.  The sausage did cook well in the bake, but I think I added too much sauce to that pizza.

Norma