January 18, 2013 - 4:29am
Searching for a Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe
Hi,
I recently read that a fellow from Cook's Illustrated, Dan Souza, developed a fool-proof whole wheat pizza dough. Has anyone seen it? I want to get back into doing pizzas again, but would prefer whole wheat. Any excellent recipes out there?
Betsy
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Hi,
try this link: http://www.pizzamaking.com/
Mirko
We shall see! I'll watch for that. We make sourdough whole wheat pizza dough at home a lot — especially during the colder months of the year. But haven't done any with yeasted dough for a long time. I think there's two differences between making a dough from refined flour and whole wheat:
1. hydration. Pizza needs a bit less than loaf bread. For ww pizza, I go between 75% and 82%, depending on the flour and the grind.
2. long hydrolyzing/soaking time. 4 to 8 hours without yeast before kneading needed to saturate the bran and germ.
Peter Reinhart has a ww pizza recipe using his two-part method, soaker & biga, which he then follows up with a huge dose of yeast and sugar. That doesn't provide the best taste for me.
I like pizza dough to retard in the refrigerator for a long time, like is common with refined-flour pizza dough. A foundation New York style pizza dough by Tom Lehmann is a great starting point, with a couple of changes. He uses a very small amount of yeast, and relies mostly on oven spring for loft ( I guess most pizzas do).
Here's the formula for what I'd do in whole wheat. Totally not foolprof, but it would taste great:
* is using active dry yeast increase to 0.35%
Method: Put water into the mixing bowl, add the salt, then add the flour. Mix at low speed for about 2 minutes. Cover and rest for 4 or more hours. Add yeast and mix or knead until dough is fully formed.
Divide the dough into desired weight pieces and round into balls. Wipe the dough balls with salad oil, and place into covered containers. Let dough balls ferment in a room-temperature environment for 2 1/2 to 3 hours (assuming a 68° dough temperature), then place into refrigerator.
The dough balls will be ready to use after about 12 hours of refrigeration. They can be used after up to 72 hours of refrigeration with good results. . . .
This week, I did a couple of 12" - 14" sourdough pizzas with 338 grams of flour at 77% hydration and with 22 grams of starter and no oil.
Mine is a simple version but I have had uniformly good luck with it.
For one 14" crust:
1 cup water (or part or all milk if you want a less crisp crust)
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp EVOO
1 cup ww flour
1 1/2 cup AP flour
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast
I mix mine in the bread machine in the morning and retard in the fridge for the day, take out and let rise to room temp, roll out and prebake on a pizza stone 10-12 mins at 400F, then top and bake another 15 - 17 mins at 400F. This recipe was shared with me by a friend so I don't know its original source.
All recipes are greatly appreciated. I was visiting a friend on a football Sunday and another friend brought pounds of prepared pizza dough and he and I turned out about ten 12" pies with assorted toppings. We worked with 2 pizza stones in the oven--and boy, were they ever delicious!! The only thing is I would really prefer a healthier dough.
My pizza dough is in here Bread Formulas, adapted from a Vito Iacopelli video. I think the poolish version has better extensibility and flavor.
I was browsing here looking for tips on improving extensibility; I will try increasing the hydration, as another commenter suggests.
I also found a nice tip for adapting to a home oven, which is in the document.