I've searched both the forum and google, but can't seem to find exx1976's recipe. I had it previously, and know he's sent it in for the upcoming cookbook, but I've lost my copy and can't find it. Can anyone help? Any updates to your body of work exx?

This time of year, it goes like this:

300gr tepid water
1 tsp yeast (I prefer platinum baking yeast)
pinch of salt
tablespoon or two of sugar (aids in browning, I just eyeball it)
540gr 00 flour
some extra virgin olive oil (maybe 2 tablespoons? Again, I eyeball it)

put water, yeast, and sugar into mixing bowl. Allow to sit until yeast foams.

Add salt and flour. mix with dough hook.

As the dough begins coming together, add olive oil. Allow dough hook to knead dough for 20 minutes.

rest 1 hour.

portion into 4 equal chunks. Roll into balls. Put in individual ziplock bags in the fridge overnight (if you have the patience). Bring back to room temperature before stretching.

Bake on a hot stone in a preheated 500 degree oven. 1 minute on the pan, 9 minutes on the stone. Use fresh grated (by you, off the block) mozz for best results.

Post pics!

I've been meaning to try this.

I tried using OO flour but haven't got the formula right yet. Not bad but I like a little "chewier" crust. I will retry.

My recipe:
3-cups King Arthur Bread Flour
1/2 cup Semolina Flour
teaspoon or so of salt
half teaspoon sugar in flour
eighth of a stick of butter
a drizzle of olive oil
mix
1-1/3 cups water > warm/tepid
add teaspoon of sugar to water
add packet of yeast
mix and add to flour mixture gradually and drizzle some more olive oil.
Mix in my Ninja device with the bread dough settings (YMMV).
put in olive oil coated bowl and let rise for an hour or two.
I separate into two balls (makes two med-lg +/-)
Put one in baggie in fridge for later and keep one for immediate use.

YMMV

I find it best with the oven preheated at 500-550 and use a ceramic stone. I will sometimes turn it down after a couple minutes to 450 depending on the toppings.
This also works great for deep dish (my favorite) except it is in a dish (no ceramic stone) and it cooks longer.
Still the uber thin Neapolitan eludes me but I have not given up.
LOVE PIZZA.
PS Pizza on the Big Green Egg is great too!

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

PS Pizza on the Big Green Egg is great too!

It is indeed, but I had to stop for awhile as I broke three stones. I went to a steel "stone" and haven't looked back.

quote:

Not bad but I like a little "chewier" crust.

I've been using two parts bread flour to one part semolina and am happy with the results. I'm also cooking on a steel.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I tried using OO flour but haven't got the formula right yet. Not bad but I like a little "chewier" crust. I will retry.

My recipe:
3-cups King Arthur Bread Flour
1/2 cup Semolina Flour
teaspoon or so of salt
half teaspoon sugar in flour
eighth of a stick of butter
a drizzle of olive oil
mix
1-1/3 cups water > warm/tepid
add teaspoon of sugar to water
add packet of yeast
mix and add to flour mixture gradually and drizzle some more olive oil.
Mix in my Ninja device with the bread dough settings (YMMV).
put in olive oil coated bowl and let rise for an hour or two.
I separate into two balls (makes two med-lg +/-)
Put one in baggie in fridge for later and keep one for immediate use.

YMMV

I find it best with the oven preheated at 500-550 and use a ceramic stone. I will sometimes turn it down after a couple minutes to 450 depending on the toppings.
This also works great for deep dish (my favorite) except it is in a dish (no ceramic stone) and it cooks longer.
Still the uber thin Neapolitan eludes me but I have not given up.
LOVE PIZZA.
PS Pizza on the Big Green Egg is great too!

You'll never get reproducible results trying to measure flour by volume. Trust me on this. I resisted the scale as long as I possibly could, it really makes all the difference.

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:

You'll never get reproducible results trying to measure flour by volume. Trust me on this. I resisted the scale as long as I possibly could, it really makes all the difference.

I agree.
I do weigh coffee and it makes a difference.
Just never made the switch to dough yet.

Thanks! Made two batches, froze one, the other is already in my belly, so no pictures. Next time I'll try to plan ahead and get a meal protection picture.

Did one sausage and pepperoni for my daughter (5), chicken, roasted bell pepper and garlic for my wife and I, and a buffalo chicken and fried onion one also.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:

You'll never get reproducible results trying to measure flour by volume. Trust me on this. I resisted the scale as long as I possibly could, it really makes all the difference.

I agree.
I do weigh coffee and it makes a difference.
Just never made the switch to dough yet.

Tell me more?

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin1069:

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:

You'll never get reproducible results trying to measure flour by volume. Trust me on this. I resisted the scale as long as I possibly could, it really makes all the difference.

I agree.
I do weigh coffee and it makes a difference.
Just never made the switch to dough yet.

Tell me more?

Grind coffee. Measure on scale. Put in coffee pot. Drink.

He starts out with 40 oz. water and 5 pounds of flour, but scientific precision quickly goes out the window. He's made over a million pizzas.

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
He starts out with 40 oz. water and 5 pounds of flour, but that scientific precision quickly goes out the window. He's made over a million pizzas.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VKYetUKnwQU" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Again, scientific would be weight, not volume.


Regardless, even with measuring by weight, some tweaking needs to be done. The water content of the flour will require if more or less needs to be added to get the correct ratio.

Once you've made half a dozen recipes worth of GOOD dough, you'll develop a feel for what it should feel like when it's correct. Then you'll know if you need to add more flour or not.

BTW - it's WAY easier to add more flour than it is to add more water, so if you must, go a little short on that side.

quote:

Originally posted by exx1976:

quote:

Originally posted by mikeyspizza:
He starts out with 40 oz. water and 5 pounds of flour, but that scientific precision quickly goes out the window. He's made over a million pizzas.

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VKYetUKnwQU" width="560"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Again, scientific would be weight, not volume.


Regardless, even with measuring by weight, some tweaking needs to be done. The water content of the flour will require if more or less needs to be added to get the correct ratio.

Once you've made half a dozen recipes worth of GOOD dough, you'll develop a feel for what it should feel like when it's correct. Then you'll know if you need to add more flour or not.

BTW - it's WAY easier to add more flour than it is to add more water, so if you must, go a little short on that side.

I know, and I will eventually move to "by weight." I just think it's funny that in the part 1 video Frank adds more water at 1:47, then in part 2 he's adding more flour throughout.

Thanks to one of exx's post long ago, I tried making pizza dough. Which then lead to making my own pizza sauce (will cover later).

I played with the original recipe a bit, as I never could locate 00 flour in a local store. So I tried several different flours, until I found what worked best for me.

Here's the ingredients for one 14" pizza dough.

8.5 oz. of King Arthur bread flour
1.0 oz. of King Arthur whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. yeast
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper (add to your taste)

5.25 oz. warm bottled water (important, as treated water can neutralize yeast)

1 tsp. olive oil

Weigh and mix dry ingredients in large bowl. Then stir in the water. Once mixed together, add oil and knead well until mixture is even. Roll into a ball.

Place dough ball in oiled bowl and let stand (in warm place) for a couple hours. Dough will roughly double in size.

Pull dough and punch it down on a floured surface. Then throw it, until you like the thickness.

Place dough on a corn meal covered pizza peel. Spread sauce, cover with mozzarella, add toppings and sprinkle with Italian seasoning.

While preparing pizza, warm oven to 475 F for 15 mins. or longer to warm stone. Place pizza on corn meal covered stone and bake for 10 mins. (1-2 mins. longer for thicker pizzas). Enjoy!

Pizza looks good!

I usually don't put toppings all the way to the edge since the bread-like consistency of the crust is one of my favorite parts, but to each their own.

As for the type of flour - I can't find it here either. I order it 10Kg at a time from Amazon for pretty cheap.


And an EXCELLENT point about the water. I've tried lots of different things - Fiji, aquafina, everything I could get my hands on.

Fortunately, where I live now, tap water works just fine. But an excellent point that I forget to mention.


Homemade sauce is nice, but we've found a canned version that is nice if I add some sugar, crushed red pepper, and basil to it. It's cheap, and WAY easier (not to mention less time consuming) than scratch-made.

quote:

Originally posted by Excam_Man:

5.25 oz. warm bottled water (important, as treated water can neutralize yeast)

Regarding yeast health, I would worry more about the effects of the salt than the treated water. Obviously, if you like the results, no need to change, but what I do is split the water amount in 2 parts and let the yeast rehydrate for 5 min. prior to mixing w/ the other ingredients.

Once the yeast cell walls have re-acclimated to the wet environment they are much happier. I do this partly from a brewing background but I see this mentioned in baking quite often as well.

Just putting that out there for consideration.

Edit: You'll notice exx1976 keeps his salt and yeast separate at first too.

One of my biggest Pizza faults is trying to cram too much/many toppings.
I have been better later and the results are always better.

I haven't tried it with pizza dough yet, but I made really satisfying bread for the first time over the weekend. I've made bread quite a few times in the past, and have been able to reliably produce beautiful bread with great texture, but it just never had much flavor (the worst offender being braided challah bread with an egg wash: so beautiful, so utterly flavorless).

I recently bought several bread cookbooks, including "Flour Water Salt Yeast," where I got the recipe I used over the weekend.

Apparently the missing ingredient in my past bread efforts was fermentation time. I always followed the "rise two hours, punch down, proof an hour, bake" sorts of recipes in the past.

The recipe I made this weekend used a "poolish" - basically, you take half the recipe's flour, mix it with an equal weight of water and a tiny amount of yeast to make a really wet mess, and let it ferment for ~12 hours before you add the rest of the ingredients. THEN you do the "rise two hours, punch down, proof an hour, bake" thing.

It was fantastic.

I've read a couple of other bread books now ("The Bread Baker's Apprentice" and "Tartine Bread"), and they all talk about extended fermentation time as a critical ingredient in bread that actually tastes good. One of the methods in "The Bread Baker's Apprentice," which the author attributes to a bakery in Paris using to produce the best baguette he has ever had, involves mixing the entire recipe worth of dough using ice-cold water and immediately putting it in the fridge for at least 12 hours, then taking it out and letting it rise for a few hours.

Anyway, this has been a very long-winded post, which comes down to a very simple point. Part of exx1976's recipe is "Put in individual ziplock bags in the fridge overnight (if you have the patience)." That part is important!

^^^ It's a fun way to experiment. I usually aim for a 2+ day cold ferment w/ my pizza. I make enough dough for 2 or 3 so the last one might be 4 days old. The only problem I've found is the elasticity of the dough changes over time and it really wants to open up. But this can be addressed w/ the amount of yeast used as you reduce the yeast for the longer ferments.

Tony Gemignani has a couple poolish recipes I copied from his Pizza Bible. I need to try one, if I can find it.