🍕 Pizza Log: Experiment 2 - Cold Proof
Experiment date: 13th February 2021
Objective: Implement some best practice
Abstract: Using stronger flour, more water, saner ratios, and longer proving, I created a flawed masterpiece, spoiled by one schoolboy error.
Reagents
This week I am trying to firm up ingredient ratios. I've discovered the concept of "baker's percentages", which is where minor ingredients are specified as percentages of the major ingredient (flour) rather than absolute weight. This makes a lot of sense - the recipe can thus be scaled in proportion to the target quantity of dough. Based on some research, here are the percentages I have settled on:
- 100% flour
- 70% water
- 1% yeast
- 2% salt
- 3% oil
Numerologically, I like these ratios. Easy as 1-2-3. Well, easy as 100-70-1-2-3.
Method
I was recommended to aim for an 80% hydration dough, but I looked up some videos of people attempting this and got scared. It looked like they were handling porridge - and they were all using stand mixers. I don't have one of those and I don't want to give up kitchen workspace to one.
So I dialled my aspirations back to 70% hydration, which was still up 10% on last week's unplanned narrow squeak. I needn't have worried. Since I switched to using a very strong flour this week, and I didn't appreciate how much more water is absorbed by stronger flour, the dough actually came together in a very workable blob. Rather than get either my hands or my work surface sticky, I kneaded it with two wooden spoons, picking it up and flowing it like a diabolo, letting gravity do most of the stretching work. I had a lot of fun doing this.
I was very pleased with the consistency and may try to go for an even higher hydration percentage next week.
After activating the dried yeast at exactly 42°C for ten minutes, I added the flour and salt - a lot more salt than I would usually use. I added the oil quite late and this made the wooden spoon procedure rather slippery at first, but I got it all worked in eventually.
My YouTube literature review included some information about cold proving. I like the idea of this a lot - free flavour development for no additional effort: just leave the dough somewhere cold and let it do its thing for 24 hours, 48 hours, or maybe even longer.
I cold-proved this week's dough for 6 hours in the garage. As it's February in northern Europe here, the garage is currently colder than the fridge, so I was concerned that too long in the garage might cause either the dough or I to freeze and die. I wrapped it in clingfilm and a couple of teatowels, and hoped for the best.
I checked on it after 4 hours, by unwrapping the towels and jabbing a thermometer into it. To my astonishment, it was 10.0°C in the centre - exactly the recommended temperature, to three significant figures! I left it for another two hours, then brought it inside to warm back up to room temperature.
As evening approached, I oiled some foiled trays and turned the dough out, splitting it into two and shaping the pieces into the usual squashed sphere shapes.
I put 30 minutes on a timer and decided to call this period a second proof. The trays sat on the cold oventop - so proof by induction?
Sauce
- An unmeasured lug of extra virgin olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
- 500g supermarket own-brand tomato passata
- An unmeasured shake of dried basil
Heat the oil in a pan, flash the garlic for 30 seconds, add the passata and dried basil, simmer for 20 minutes to reduce.
Last week I used passata which came with the basil already in it. The plain stuff is much cheaper, and this version of the sauce tasted no different - win!
Toppings
Mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, pepperoni, shallot and pineapple.
I roasted the pineapple chunks beforehand to drive out most of the moisture.
Result
I was very excited by the dough - it was behaving just like all the doughs I had seen on recipe websites for a split second just before they disappeared behind an advert.
And indeed, the dough was excellent!
So what went wrong? A classic error: I put too many toppings on, and I neglected to pre-bake the dough for a few minutes without toppings. The result was a soggy, undercooked centre. A real disappointment because the outer crust was fantastic.
~lab6: 8/10 Definitely the tastiest dough I've ever made, but a floppy soggy centre was unforgiveable.
Mrs ~lab6: 9/10 but was paying more attention to the gin
Little Miss ~lab6: 10/10
Littler Miss ~lab6: 10/10
These girls are easy to please!
Next time
This is now my new baseline recipe. I'm going to try a higher hydration with the same flour, and I'm definitely going to remember to prebake because I'm not giving up the lashings of toppings. I'll take a slightly uneven bake in exchange for more of the good stuff.