Another Home Run Inn Pizza Attempt

This is how this attempt went on an the HRI clone dough and HRI clone pizza.

The dough ball didn’t double in size by the measurements of the poppy seeds spacing, but the dough ball did look fermented enough. The dough ball was taken out of the fridge at 6:30 PM and I thought I would first try to roll the dough out to a skin a little and then try to press out the skin by hand.  After rolling for a little I tried to pressed it out the rest of the way and even tried to pick it up and stretch by hand, but as can be seen there wanted to be two tears in the skin, so I finished rolling the skin out to 13”.  I rolled to 13” to see if a thinner crust might be able to be crisper on the bottom crust.  I first folded over the edges of the rim and then fluted.  The skin was docked before fluting.  The skin on the dark disk was tempered for 20 minutes at room temperature at about 70 degrees F.  A couple parts of the fluted rim wanted to fall some so I pushed them back up and fluted those parts again.

The pizza was dressed right after the skin was tempered.  Until the sauce and mozzarella were applied the one side of the fluted rim wanted to sag down, so I fluted that again.  Until the whole pizza was dressed the fluted edges seemed to behave better, in that they did stay upright then.  I didn’t use a lot of bench flour when rolling, so I don’t know if I would have used more bench flour if that might have made the fluted edges stay upright better.  I could see that even before trying to flute the skin that it was going to give those dimples right near the edges of the dark disk.  I don’t know if more flour would have been used when rolling if that would improve those dimples either, but I did see that the longer the fluted skin sat out the more it wanted to stay upright without sagging.

The pizza was dressed with a hot sausage I had purchased at my local supermarket on sale for .99.  The amounts of ingredients used on this pizza were 7 ounces of the hot sausage, 6.5 ounces of LMPS mozzarella, 14 slices of pepperoni, 1.1 ounce of diced green peppers and 4 ounces of sauce.

The pizza was baked on the second to the top rack of the oven at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes, then I removed the bottom rack and put it on the top oven rack position for the last 2 minutes because the cheese wasn’t browning enough.  I would have put the top rack in at first, but I thought it would be too close to the pizza for me to be able to watch what was going on in the bake.  Total bake time was 17 minutes.  The fluted edges did stay upright in the oven, with no sagging.  The edge crust got a little too brown.  There was no real gum lines as can be seen in the photos.  The baked pizza was 11 ½ “.  I liked the thicker rim crust better than when I fluted thinner in the looks and taste.  The bottom crust didn’t seem any thinner to me though.

The HRI clone pizza did turn out very tasty in my opinion, in that the crust did have a good taste and the bottom crust and fluted edges were flaky.  I sure don’t know though if they were flaky enough, since I never ate any real HRI pizzas at their pizzerias.  I did really like the combination of toppings on this pizza.  At least I also found out a pre-bake of the skin really wasn’t needed to make a decent pizza.

Don’t mind my fingers because I was outside working today, so my fingernails aren’t in the best shape.

Norma

                                     

Some More Detroit Style Pizzas

These are just a few more pictures of some of the Detroit style pizzas I tried out with Pecorino Romano cheese as a topping after the bake.  The pizzas were a veggie pizza, a sausage pizza and the same pepper smoked bacon pizza as last week.  It doesn’t take much of the shredded Pecornio Romano cheese to put this style of pizza.  I wasn’t happy with how the sausage pizza looked, but will work on that.  I didn’t have any of the tomatoes I used last week and just used Roma tomatoes this week.  I liked the brighter color of the tomatoes I used last week.

I also tried an experiment with a already tempered dough in the pan that was leftover while I was cleaning up at the end of the night.  I didn’t add any topping and the tempered dough was first baked in the pan and then I just took a tong and put some margarine over the top near the very end of the bake.  It surprised me that the dough didn’t brown until it was fully baked.  The bottom crust was a little browned, but the whole baked dough was very soft and light in texture.  The dough reminded me of one of the lightest Focaccia doughs I have ever made.  The taste of whatever this might be called was very good too.  I could see it might be able to be used for some kind of sandwich that might be able to be grilled or not.  I want to play around with that method a little bit more.  I also would like to try some garlic cheese sticks this way, but am not sure how much toppings to add.  Maybe a focaccia with other added toppings might also be able to be made.  The baked dough from the above experiment is still very soft this morning.

My steel pans seemed to baked the edge caramelized crusts darker yesterday.  I decided to season the steel pans again without any dough in them.  I didn’t take any photos of the pizzas after I seasoned the steel pans again, but the rim crusts were then lighter.  I guess I will learn when the steel pans need to be seasoned again over time.

Norma

Boardwalk Style Pizzas

The pasta and salad lady in the main building gave me two plastic sign holders last week and told me to make some signs for inside them so customers that might come to her stand might see the signs.  The pasta lady also said she would tell her customers how she really liked my boardwalk style pizzas.  I quickly made two signs on my computer.  I took them over to her pasta stand yesterday morning and she put them on top of her counters.  In two of the photos I think my old caramel popcorn stand can be seen in the left back round.  That was kind of the pasta lady to put those signs on her stand.

I am really liking how easily this dough stretches into a skin and how the pizza tastes with the dough only cold fermenting for one day.  The opening of the dough balls are a breeze and the skins do not want to stick to the wooden peel after dressing.  The bottom crust is crisp enough for me and so is the rim crust, with a nice moistness inside the rim crust.  The photos show the rim crust really isn’t really dark, but then I have to reheat most of the slices for customers, so the rim crust does get a little darker in a matter about 20 seconds.  Most of my customers now do like their slices reheated to get the bottom crust to crisp again after they have been stored in my heated cabinet.  My rims are bigger than a Mack’s pizza.

The technician came to my place to install a converter box so I can watch more channels on my TV.  I don’t know how we started talking about pizza (who doesn’t want to talk about pizza :),  but I found the conversation very interesting in some things the technician said.  The technician said he had worked for Papa Dino’s 45 years ago near Harrisburg, Pa. and that has always been his favorite pizza.  He said there was also another pizza business he also really liked, but it was upstate and the last time he visited that pizzeria the man had his recipe for sale for 3,500.00.  I asked the technician if the man ever sold his recipe and he said he didn’t know, but that pizzeria is closed now.  I asked the technician if he tried Papa Dino’s pizza now at their only location in Lancaster and he said yes he did, but said the cheese still tastes the same, but the crust and sauce have changed and he doesn’t like it anymore.  I told the technician that I also always liked Papa Dino’s pizza too and know that the Papa Dino’s pizzas have changed.  I asked the technician if he recalled what type of cheese was used on the Papa Dino’s pizza after all these past years and he said he was young then and didn’t remember much about anything, except he really liked Papa Dino’s pizza back then and still continues to think about it after tasting many pizzas.  We also discussed all kinds of the pizzas around our area and he thinks the same thing as I do, as the crusts are really bland and almost taste like cardboard.  The technician and I also talked about other things pizza related and told him I also make pizzas.  I told the technician that I make something like a Papa Dino’s pizza at market now.  He said he has to come to market sometime when he has off on a Tuesday and try my pizzas.

Some more customers said my boardwalk style pizzas taste like a Grotto’s pizza and 3 women said it tastes just like a Mack’s pizza.  I think it is kind of funny that one kind of pizza can taste like different pizzerias pizza.

Norma

Cheese I guess was breaking down a pizza from being in the oven too long

This pizza was baked about a minute to long while Steve and I were talking, or waiting on customers.  What I found interesting about the too long baked pizza was how the cheese looked.  Steve took that pizza along him with him, so I don’t know how it tasted.

Norma