Bertucci's dough
David Martin
There I was thinking that it was my puny little oven that made my homemade
pizzas tough and nasty compared to the ones at Bertucci's. But last time I
stopped in for a Margherita fix, I asked if they sold dough: sure enough,
$0.50 for a small, $0.75 for a large. I bought a couple of smalls and
tossed them into my freezer. Last night I baked them up and they were
*wonderful*! It was clear even before baking that the dough was much
better than anything I've ever made at home, stretchier and more supple.
I'm thinking I can be pretty happy just buying dough from them---the price
is right. But one day I'll want an earthier baking experience, or I'll
move away, and then I'll be stuck. So: does anyone have their recipe, or a
close approximation?
I've tried a variety of recipes but usually make Julia Child's white pizza
dough from the Way to Cook. I'm thinking perhaps I'm not kneading long
enough. She only calls for something like 60 or 70 strokes total. It's
soft at that point, but not particularly tender. Will it be better if I
just keep kneading it? (Obviously, I don't have a terribly wide experience
with baking bread.)
--
David Martin
John Polcari
In article <mspohil...@csb.bu.edu>, d...@cs.bu.edu says...
>I'm thinking I can be pretty happy just buying dough from them---the price
>is right. But one day I'll want an earthier baking experience, or I'll
>move away, and then I'll be stuck. So: does anyone have their recipe, or a
>close approximation?
>
I used be in charge of doughmaking for Pizzeria Regina (no they don't sell the
doughballs) and I assisted in making dough once in a while. I can tell you
there's only Flour (hi-gluten) , Oil, Salt and yeast (Anhauser-Busch brewer's
yeast). I can also tell you that I couldn't duplicate the dough by hand in
small batches. There's just somthing different about dough made in large
batches by huge machines....
When I make Pizza at home, I just buy supermarket bakery fresh doughballs.
But, if you must try to make your own, I suggest you try using a kitchenaid
mixer with a dough hook. and be real scientific about it. That is, record
empirical information on _all_ variables when you mix, such as water temp,
ambient temp, mixing time. I also suggest you find some high-gluten flour.
JP3 John Polcari jpol...@bstone.com meat...@tiac.net
---
" I hate quotations" -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jerry Natowitz
In article <52vbtc$b...@news-central.tiac.net>,
John Polcari <jpol...@bstone.com> wrote:
>In article <mspohil...@csb.bu.edu>, d...@cs.bu.edu says...
>
>doughballs) and I assisted in making dough once in a while. I can tell you
>there's only Flour (hi-gluten) , Oil, Salt and yeast (Anhauser-Busch brewer's
>yeast). I can also tell you that I couldn't duplicate the dough by hand in
>small batches. There's just somthing different about dough made in large
>batches by huge machines....
Never had Pizza at the Original Reginas, so I don't know how their dough
compares to Bertuccis. I love Bertucci's rolls, and their pizza too,
except when they screw up the latter - 50% of the time :-( .
As a once award winning bread baker, before the damned programmer virus
infected me, my guess is that Bertucci's is also using high gluten flour,
un-bromated!! The flour either has a lot of malted-barley flour, or
they are adding a bit of sweetener (corn syrup or malt syrup), or they
let the dough raise for a long time in a relatively cool (70F in a bakery
is damned cool!) place.
After trying a bag of King Arthur's (high gluten) Flour for Bread Machines,
I am sticking with the regular King Arthur's. That flour is high-enough
in gluten for my needs. I don't use a bread machine, but I do my mixing
and most of my kneading in a Kitchen Aid.
--
Jerry Natowitz - j...@spdcc.com
Debra Deutsch
This is fascinating.
I recently found a pizza dough recipe I really liked. I made it with
King Arthur all-purpose flour. The resulting pizza crust had just the
texture and flavor I like. However, I wasn't able to stretch it as
thin as the pizza I remember from my childhood in Brooklyn. Now the
quest for thin tasty crust has begun.
The next experiment was with King Arthur's "Italian-style" flour,
available by mail order or by pilgrimmage to Norwich, Vermont (highly
recommended, especially at this time of year). This flour has less
gluten than KA all-purpose, among other differences. The dough was
easily stretched, even to the extent that it was translucent.
Compared to the first batch made with all-purpose, resulting crust was
bland instead of nicely tangy and had an even, close texture instead
of irregular robust bubbles. The differences may have been due to
differences in the fermentation of the dough, so this is worth
revisiting.
I also have some King Arthur "special" flour that is higher-gluten
than the all-purpose and especially intended for bread (about 13%
protein, if I remember correctly), and some King Arthur "Sir Lancelot"
flour that is even higher in gluten (something over 14% protein, if I
remember correctly). I once tried the special in a similar pizza
recipe and had trouble stretching the dough, even though I was very
careful to let it relax before trying. Having experimented with Sir
Lancelot and bagels, I can attest to the fact that dough made with
this stuff may be a fair substitute for rubber :-). It, like the
Italian-style flour, is available by mail order.
This all makes me wonder about how much gluten is the right amount, if
there can be too much gluten in flour used in pizza dough, and how the
heck do you stretch dough made with high-gluten flour so you can get
that nice thin crust that I remember?
(After this comes the question about sliding the pizza from your peel
onto your baking stone without the pizza becoming oval shaped :-))
Debbie Deutsch
jpol...@bstone.com (John Polcari) writes:
>In article <mspohil...@csb.bu.edu>, d...@cs.bu.edu says...
>>I'm thinking I can be pretty happy just buying dough from them---the price
>>is right. But one day I'll want an earthier baking experience, or I'll
>>move away, and then I'll be stuck. So: does anyone have their recipe, or a
>>close approximation?
>>
>I used be in charge of doughmaking for Pizzeria Regina (no they don't sell the
>doughballs) and I assisted in making dough once in a while. I can tell you
>there's only Flour (hi-gluten) , Oil, Salt and yeast (Anhauser-Busch brewer's
>yeast). I can also tell you that I couldn't duplicate the dough by hand in
>small batches. There's just somthing different about dough made in large
>batches by huge machines....
>When I make Pizza at home, I just buy supermarket bakery fresh doughballs.
John Polcari
In article <ddeutsch....@labs-n.bbn.com>, ddeu...@bbn.com says...
>
>This is fascinating.
-snip
>
>This all makes me wonder about how much gluten is the right amount, if
>there can be too much gluten in flour used in pizza dough, and how the
>heck do you stretch dough made with high-gluten flour so you can get
>that nice thin crust that I remember?
Well, having made quite a few pizzas at various Regina's with some Master
Pizzaoulo's (if I spelled it right, it means pizzamaker) I learned that the
dough has to be throughly _relaxed_ before it stretches just right. At a
minimum, we liked dough to be a minimum of 48hrs old before we used it. Optimum
workability and texture came at about 3 to 4 days.
Gluten gives texture and "tensile strength" to the dough, I postulate that: the
higher the gluten the longer the dough must be "rested" (as we said in
Reginaland) before use.
>(After this comes the question about sliding the pizza from your peel
>onto your baking stone without the pizza becoming oval shaped :-))
Ya know, this is not entirely unrelated to the stretching question as it
relates to the tensile strength of the uncooked pizza.
So, since you asked, ;) I favor the "clean jerk" I hold the end of the peel
with the thumb and one or two fingers, jerk it back, and let the handle fly
back through a loose hand.
BTW, your peel should be sanded regularly and scraped down between pizzas, and
use a nice dry medium coarse semolina as your "lubricant".
Kyle Tucker
John Polcari wrote:
>
> So, since you asked, ;) I favor the "clean jerk" I hold the end of the peel
> with the thumb and one or two fingers, jerk it back, and let the handle fly
> back through a loose hand.
>
fly!
- Kyle
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Kyle Tucker - UNIX Systems Administrator - EBSCO Publishing
tuc...@epnet.com - (508) 356-6500 Ext 370
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