Now Tossing: Pizza Dough

Today is the new milestone of my pizza chef career. This evening, I made several successful pizza dough toss for the first time. It flew up in the air, circles, and landed on my palm. This Youtube Video gave the inspiration on how to learn to toss pizza. And to avoid waste pizza landing on the floor, I practice by tossing a small bath towel :D.

While it is pretty easy to learn the technique of pizza tossing from the video, and using towel as a safe learning tool, making a good pizza dough that is toss-able will test your patience. It is a matter of making the right dough, that elastic enough, thus would not tear when it lands on your hands. Experience will tell you the right mix of water and flour. And if you have to error, error on the wetter side, because the mix will dry up during the kneading process.

This is the dough that marks my new milestone. It was only 1/3 of its size when I finish kneading it last night. The tile under the plastic container is 30x30cm.


The tossed pizza dough soon become 3 nice pan of pizza: The Quattro Formaggi, Sweet Corn, and Cocktail sausage pizza.

This is the recipe I follow for the dough, thanks to Rosa for allowing me to repost her recipe. A little bit modified based on my experience.

~ BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar - FOR GF use agave syrup
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl
   
2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water slowly and mix well (with hand) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water. If you are in doubt, error to the wetter side.
   
3. Once it is well mixed, start kneading. Pull the dough and fold, repeat until the dough springy, elastic, and less sticky
   
4. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.
5. Split the dough into 6 pieces. Gently round each piece into a ball.
6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.
7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days. Take it out from freezer the morning you want to make the pizza, and let it rest for couple of hours before start tossing it
   
8. NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

Blue Cheese, Salami & Pepperoni

We still remember the taste of Blue Cheese in the Quattro Formaggi of Warung Italia. The pungent distinctive flavor of Blue Cheese, when mixed with other cheese and proper pizza dough taste heaven. I was prepared to make a Quattro Formaggi, when I found only 3 kind of cheese in the fridge. Insisting on having Blue Cheese on top of a pizza, I made a Triple Formaggi instead. Some trapped air pocket screw the appearance of the pizza, but didn't not affect the taste. Complemented with the slight salty taste of cheddar, the cheese mix is excellent.

The 2nd pan of pizza is requested by Kiko: Salami pizza. The salami wrinkle a little bit when baked - there should be a better way to bake a salami pizza

And the final pan of pizza was decorated with round of Pepperoni. Among all pizza topping I've used, I'm still impressed with the salty taste of pepperoni, which has become my favorite pizza topping.

Photo of our pizza can be found at http://www.pbase.com/bennyc/pizza_venture

The 6th Pizza

The recipe for the pizza dough called for 6 servings, and last weekend, we only baked 5 pizzas. If you ever wonder what happen to the 6th, I just baked it this evening. I made a progress in so-called my pizza chef career: This time no rolling pin used :D. Although.... I stretch the dough a little bit too thin in some part that, it tears when I tried to move it from the pan.


The Pepperoni is a little bit burnt, thanks to the dead clock in my dining room that screw my baking time. The combination of Mozzarella, Gruyere, and Cheddar should gave a good taste, if mixed with proper portion. The Gruyere gave a slight cow taste, cheddar gave the salty, and the mozzarella bind them all. The mushroom is unnecessary, it ruins the whole appearance of the pizza.

Next time... I'll toss the pizza dough....

Pizza Weekend

In our last trip to Bali, we fell in love with Warung Italia. As the name said, it is an Italian restaurant, serving pasta, pizza and other Italian dishes. It is the pizzas that impress us, with its flaky crusty and delicious cheese. Not only the taste, but also the fancy of the chef preparing the pizza crust; He tossed the round pizza dough up in the air. Obsessed with the taste and the fancy, I pledge myself to made one.

It does not take long to find the recipe from Rosa of Daring Bakers. I went shopping, went home with high spirit, which diminished once I started making the dough. The dough, which will be the base of the pizza, is the key thing that can make or break a pizza. It looks too wet, yet I’m not confident enough to add more flour. So with hesitant, I split the dough into 6, cover it in olive oil, and put it in the fridge, while crossing my finger. I even asked Kiko to cross her finger too.

So there come the moment of truth, after a slight sleepless night of having 6 wasted pizza doughs. I pulled one of the dough and start stretching it, hoping that I can toss it like the fancy chef at Bali did. My first attempt failed, second attempt failed, third attempt, the dough fell into the floor. I gave up and use the rolling pin instead.

We arrange the topping of our first pizza: tomato paste, pepperoni, bell pepper, mozzarella and bacon bits. We throw the pizza into the pre-heated oven, waiting anxiously while looking through the oven. Fifteen minutes later, we feel a slight hope as we saw the sizzling mozzarella. Well, at least the topping is delicious enough.


Our first slice and bite certainly cheer us and remove all doubt. While not comparable to the pizza in Bali, the dough is certainly better than edible. It is excellent, especially for our first attempt. We are anxious and immediately start the 2nd pan, and get even better result with flatter pizza dough.

At the end of the day, we are eating the 3rd pan of pizza, and the next day, I complete our weekend pizza venture with 2 more pans, for a total of 5 pans of pizzas. Most of the pan won’t last for more than 30 minutes.