The Pizza Therapy Forum and Pasta Therapy Forum

pizza · Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 8:34 am Post subject: Bland Dough Issues...

Tom writes:

abeets · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1

Lack of salt is usually the culprit for flavorless dough.

It looks as though you have good loft and bubbling, but I see not too much brown in the crust color.

Look into your cooking time and temperature. Temp should be 550, the usual oven maximum, and leave it in long enough to brown up the crust. If the surface is cooking sooner than the crust browns, the rack may be too high in the oven.

-Signor Abeets

standre · Joined: 03 Jul 2006 Posts: 2

paul · Joined: 05 Sep 2007 Posts: 2

#1 - Use bread flour, not all-purpose flour. I use Robin Hood "Best for Bread Machine" flour. At one time, I purchased 40kg bags of bread flour from a friendly bakery, but in the past few years, the big supermarkets have begun to carry more manageable 5lb bags of bread flour.

#2 - Proofing. 24 hours. When I followed the recipe that came with my bread machine and let the dough rise for only an hour in a warm place, the result was amateurish crust - yeasty, and when browned it had a cookie-like crunch instead of bread-like qualities. By simply changing the final step from "let the dough rise for an hour in a warm place" to "put the dough into a plastic bag and immediately put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours", my pizza crust took a huge leap forward in flavour and texture.

#3 - Overworking. If you over-stretch the dough, the result will be cookie-like. I noticed that you posted a question about stretching and holes. When that used to happen to me, I would roll the dough up into a ball and "start all over again". Bad move! Rolling pins are a bad move, too. Unfortunately, I still can't stretch dough like the pros, so I still use a rolling pin (sparingly) and let the stretched dough relax on the peel for some 5-15 minutes before putting the toppings on. [In fact, I now use a premium children's rolling pin about 4" wide. That lets me stretch the center of the dough while leaving a less-stretched crust.]

#4 - I have developed the opinion that home ovens require a "wetter" dough because their heat is lower than that attained by pro ovens and the cooking time is subsequently longer. I have had better results when my dough comes out "sticky" from the bag in the fridge (and gets dumped straight into a flour bucket). My "wetter" dough recipe appeared in the newsletter a year or two ago - try looking at back issues.

#5 - Dead yeast?