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

A few more Detroit style pizzas

I sure don’t know, but now believe that when freezing the cheese I use for my Detroit style pizza, somehow the freezing does change the cheese.  The melting ability of the cheese is still the same though.  I needed some more cheese grated later yesterday afternoon and that cheese was completely defrosted.   That altogether defrosted cheese also grated more in dices, than in strands.

I also changed the yeast amount for my Detroit style dough this past Monday since the dough seemed to have too many bubbles in it last week when pressing the dough out in the steel pans.  The dough behaved well with the decrease in the yeast amount this week.

I made a Ev’s Smokey Joe’s Detroit style pizza Tueday, but it was modified to include spinach.  The dressings were the regular cheeses, crumbed bacon, spinach, some Gouda smoked cheese and Garlic Alfredo sauce with a sprinkling of Greek oregano over the top.

I also am making some of the bigger Detroit style pizzas with two different sets of topping on opposite sides.

Norma

Detroit Style Pizzas with 75% hydration

I waited until later in the day on Tuesday (around 3:30 PM) to start to try the two dough balls made with 0.70% IDY and 75% hydration because I wanted to see if the longer cold ferment time would make any difference in the final bake.  I forgot to measure the poppy seed spacings, but the 2 dough balls didn’t seem to ferment very much.  It can be seen on the one picture when I held the dough ball up, there wasn’t a lot of fermentation going on.  Both doughs pressed out well in the pans and tempered well in the Hatco Unit.  The final pizza with 0.70% IDY using 75% hydration was finished baking about 6:00 PM.  Peter’s advice to use 0.70% IDY with 75% hydration worked out well.  Thanks Peter for your advise to use a smaller amount of IDY for a higher hydration Detroit style dough to be cold fermented for one day.  I didn’t have time to take a lot of photos of those two pizzas, but the crumb was very good.  I am not sure about this, but the crumb did seem to be whiter in color.

Norma

More Detroit style pizzas from yesterday at market

I am still trying different dressings for the Detroit style pizzas at market.  I tried a sausage meatball with roasted red peppers, regular sliced thin mushrooms and Greek oregano yesterday.  To me the mushrooms didn’t seem to water-off too much and they seemed to bake a decent color in the longer bake of a Detroit style pizza.  That pizza was made from one of the dough balls that was stored in a plastic bag.  The first picture is what the dough balls in the plastic bags looked like yesterday morning.  The second to the last pizza of the day was also made with one of the dough balls in the plastic bag.  It seems like the plastic bags work out okay for fermenting the Detroit style dough balls.  I saved one of the dough balls in the plastic bags to see if it is frozen and then defrosted next week if there is any possibility that it will work okay in the tempering period and the final bake.  I sure don’t know how a dough with this high amount of yeast will work out the next week if it is frozen.

I also was watching yesterday somewhat how these Detroit style pizza bake.  I want to try and understand if not using enough cheese on the edges makes the final pizza puffier in the edges.  I noticed that while watching one Detroit style pizza bake closer that the edges of the pizza do first rise in the bake and then the middle of the pizza rises later.  I guess that is from the perimeter of the edges of the steel pan getting hotter faster, but am not sure.  I also purposely didn’t apply sauce to the edges on the one pizza with half cheese and sauce on one side and cheese sauce and pepperoni on the other side.  It can be seen how the edges without the sauce does seem to puff up better when no sauce is applied.

I also just tried my regular pepperoni on top of the Detroit style pizzas yesterday on a few pizzas and my regular pepperoni does work out okay in the longer bake time.

I am lucky that I can purchase just about any fresh veggies at market to try for different dressings, but soon I will have to decide on what dressings to use regularly.

I also tried out a 3 meat pizza with veggies yesterday.  The 3 meats were sliced meatballs, spicy cappicola ham and salami.  That worked out okay too.

The tempering time in the Hatco Unit at 45 minutes seems about right at about 104 degrees F.  I don’t know if I up the temperature some if the doughs will temper faster though.

More customers were introduced to Detroit style pizzas yesterday and from the opinions I heard they were favorable that customers do like a Detroit style pizza when they taste one.

Norma