Another De Lorenzo's attempted tomato pie

I did watch yesterday to see when the poppy seeds showed that the De Lornezo dough ball had expanded to double in size. The bigger tape measure was hard to place exactly right to see the actual expansion of the poppy seeds, but the poppy seeds were 1 ¼” apart. That was at 2:59 PM. I then took the dough ball out of the deli case to let it warm up for a little. As usual I got really busy then. I saw the poppy seeds spacings were showing that the dough ball was expanding quickly after it sat out at room temperature. I then put the dough ball back into the pizza prep fridge until I could get to it again. I did not measure the poppy seed spacing when I finally took the dough ball was removed from the pizza prep fridge (about a 6:00 PM), but saw the spacing of the poppy seeds were farther apart. There were no soft bubbles on top of the dough ball though. There was speckling on the top of the dough ball and I have no idea why they occurred.

The De Lorenzo clone dough ball using Peter's #7 formulation at Reply http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,25401.msg282443.html#msg282443 was easy to press out cold right out of the pizza prep fridge, but as I was pressing it out I did see and feel fermentation bubbles. The skin was easy to slide on the marble table and it opened nicely. I finished stretching the skin by hand and tried to toss it one time because I was curious to see if it could be tossed. The skin could be tossed without any tearing or ripping of the skin, but it was not near as strong as my regular skins at market. The pizza was dressed with Red Pack and 6-in 1's and the cheese used was shredded Sorrento LMPS. Olive oil was drizzled over the top of the dressings. I did turned my oven up because I was out of dough balls. When the oven got to a little over 600 on the sides edges of my deck oven I had started opening the dough ball. I am not quite sure what temperature the side edges were when I slid the pizza onto the deck, but as can be seen the temperature did go higher. I did not have time to fiddle around with the temperature knob and wait until the temperature stayed fairly constant at around 600 degrees F because it was getting late and I had a lot of clean up to do. The pizza was moved around to the side 4 corners again and the pizza was baked for 9 ½ minutes counting the amount of time the pizza was half removed to the opened oven door to brush the rim edges with olive oil and add the extra cheese.

I forgot to drizzle olive oil over the finished pizza it came out of the oven. I tried to take a video of cutting the pizza and halfway succeeded in that I did cut it, but a customer came and talked to me and then my granddaughter came back from shopping and asked me about what was on the pizza tray. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXDZ5lSVh_A As can be heard the pizza was crispy and crunchy as it was being cut. It is hard to cut a pizza and try to hold the camera at the same time so the video is not the best.

I think I over charred the bottom crust, but it did not taste burnt. I gave some slices to a few of my regular customers and some tasted testers and they said they could not taste any burnt taste in the bottom crust. This pizza was close, but not exactly like a real De Lorenzo/Robbinsville pizza.

Some how when I switched from the video mode to another mode on my camera to take regular photos the settings on the camera changed and then it took 3 photos in rapid succession. I only picked some of those photos to post, because basically they are almost identical.

My helpers yesterday were my granddaughter and her friend. Neither of them can make pizzas, but it sure was helpful having them to wait on customers, reheat slices, wash dishes and give change.

Norma

The boardwalk style of pizzas I make at market

These are just a few photos of the boardwalk style pizza I make at market.

Norma

Next attempt at a De Lorenzo's pizza.. it didn't go to well

This post is explain how the attempt went with the 59% hydration and the 1% vegetable oil dough ball and pizza.

The dough ball sat out at about 72 degrees F for about two hours to warm up. We didn't even need the fans on yesterday at market because there was a cool breeze coming in through the door that is beside my stand. The dough ball was flourdc and pressed on. A fair amount of bench flour was used to rotate the skin of the flattened dough ball. The flattened dough skin was draped over the marble bench. I was not as fast as the assemblers were at Robbinsville, but it didn't take long for the skin to stretch. I then opened the skin the rest of the way by hand. I was curious if this skin could be tossed and I did toss it one time with no ill effects that I could see. The skin was 14” in diameter as far as I could tell. The skin was dressed with a combination of Maggio cheese and LMPS Sorrento grated cheese and then the blend of Red Pack tomatoes and 6-in 1's was dolloped on the top of the grated cheeses. Olive oil was then drizzled over the top. The attempted Robbinsville pizza was baked for 10 minutes. The pizza was taken partly out of the oven to brush the rim crust edge with more olive oil.

The baked pizza sure was not crispy or crunchy anywhere in the middle. It was very soft. It still wonders me how such a thin pizza can't be crisp in such a long bake. I am not sure if my TF was off though and if I exactly had the skin to 14”. I might not have pressed the skin out evenly either. The edge crust was crispy, but a little too crispy and crunchy. This pizza did taste good, but the crisp and crunchy bottom crust was a failure. The bottom crust of the pizza stayed fairly white in the long bake.

Video of Steve cutting this De Lorenzo's attempt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eil6oL5ezrc

Norma

Still experimenting with "boardwalk style" pizzas

I tried a couple of experiments on not really pressing on the dough balls while opening into skins and the same dough balls do get more oven spring if the dough balls really aren’t pressed on a lot.

For the dough formulation I am using right now the dough balls are the easiest I ever had to open into skins and the dough balls feel so soft when taking them out of the plastic bags.  The rim crust is also tender after the bake, even if there isn’t a lot of oven spring on the dough balls when I really press out the skins.  The bottom crust just has the right amount of crisp for me.

Steve brought me some Escalon Bonta to try on the boardwalk style pizza that he purchased at Salino’s in Reading http://www.salinosimporting.com/  I am not sure what kind of Escalon Bonta it was, http://www.escalon.net/products/bonta-pizza-sauce.aspx
but it tasted about the same as the Gangi I am using now .  I might be purchasing the Escalon Bonta since I found out it tastes almost exactly the same as the Gangi and because I wouldn’t have to travel as far to purchase it.  Steve also goes to Salino’s fairly often and he said he would pick me up cases of the Escalon Bonta if I wanted any cases.

I had a couple that came to my stand yesterday and they said they had tasted many different pizzas from pizzerias in our area since moving from Philly.  They said my pizzas were the best they had tasted and purchased 4 whole pizzas yesterday.  They also said they would be back regularly to purchase the pizzas.

The “pasta lady” at market really likes the “boardwalk style” of pizzas and has told many people about then.  The pasta lady is a fan of Grotto’s pizza and has traveled to Italy different times to eat many kinds of pizza.   She also gave me two plastic menu holders yesterday and told me to make some signs about my boardwalk style of pizza and the Detroit style of pizza.  She said she would put them at her pasta stand next week.
 
Norma