Pizza Experiments

Today's dough was an experiment in hydration.

Initially, I did not knead it. Half the flour, yeast, water, a tiny bit of sugar, salt: all in a bowl, floomph. I added all the water and stirred a little. Covered and left it alone.

Over the course of the next two hours it developed from a batter into a sponge. Lots of gas bubbles formed. I mixed in about half of the remaining flour and kneaded a little to get it incorporated. Reminder to self: flour hands thoroughly first.

Then I let it rise until doubled again, added the rest of the flour, and did another desultory knead. It was still sticky. I separated it into portions, balled those and floured them.

At dinner time they were beautiful round balls of dough. If I were making bread, these would have been perfect to go into the oven as-is.

Drawback: more kneading would have encouraged more gluten formation, and then Eliz wouldn't have had such a difficult time forming the pies.

Pizza Experiments

Today's dough was an experiment in hydration.

Initially, I did not knead it. Half the flour, yeast, water, a tiny bit of sugar, salt: all in a bowl, floomph. I added all the water and stirred a little. Covered and left it alone.

Over the course of the next two hours it developed from a batter into a sponge. Lots of gas bubbles formed. I mixed in about half of the remaining flour and kneaded a little to get it incorporated. Reminder to self: flour hands thoroughly first.

Then I let it rise until doubled again, added the rest of the flour, and did another desultory knead. It was still sticky. I separated it into portions, balled those and floured them.

At dinner time they were beautiful round balls of dough. If I were making bread, these would have been perfect to go into the oven as-is.

Drawback: more kneading would have encouraged more gluten formation, and then Eliz wouldn't have had such a difficult time forming the pies.