April 11, 2022 - 3:20am
Hey, Mambo! Mambo Siciliano!
Last-minute Siciliano pizza bake. Unscripted with an all-new, emergency same-day bake siciliano dough. The test bake was scaled for a 1/2 sheet pan.
The method used for the dough goes something like this.Combine the 110F water, yeast sugar, and malt powder. On the mixer's low speed or by hand mix in the flours and salt. When all the ingredients are well-homogenized increase the speed to medium or knead by hand for 5 minutes. Slowly add the oil and incorporate it fully with the stiff dough. continue kneading on speed #2 or by hand for ten to fifteen minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic. Move the dough to a proofing bowl/box, cover, and allow to rise for one hour. degas and perform letter folds on each of the four sides. Return to the bowl/box and ferment for 30 -60 more minutes. Oil the half sheet pan with 1/4 cup olive oil. Take your time and begin to stretch the dough to conform to the sheet pan all the way up the sides. It took me three stretchings with two ten-minute rests between them. Proof covered with plastic wrap and a damp towel for one hour until very puffy. preheat the oven to 400F. Now readjust the dough into the corners of the pan. Par-bake untopped for ten minutes. Remove from the oven top with your choice of toppings and bake for ten minutes. Spin the sheet pan 180 degrees and bake for an additional ten minutes. Now check the bottom for color. Continue baking in 5-minute bursts until your desired tone of golden brown is reached. Cut into eight squares, finish with hard cheese, and serve hot!
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Looks cool! How do you avoid sticking? In both focaccia and pan pizza, I've had issues that the dough sticks to the tray, at least in some spots. Even with lots of oil... Does it depend on the tray?
To avoid sticking you need to season your pan. Seasoning is an easy procedure, coat your pan with a thin coating of a high smoke point oil (I use canola) and bake it in a 375F oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. You can cool and repeat if you like. That being said, this pan was not seasoned. I was not too worried due to a large amount of oil on the bottom. Siciliano pizza basically fries in the pan oil! The seasoned pan will get darker and darker with every use. Never wash it!
I assume this is for simple uncoated metal pans? All large pans I've seen in home kitchens in Europe (the ones I have had and have now, at least) have always been already coated with something and are already dark... I don't think they can be seasoned.
These are uncoated pans. Pans that have Teflon or other non-stick coatings should not be seasoned.
Looks delicious Will.
Benny
Ilya, couple things.
1. if you are using a baking steel under your pan, and Will is using a stone under his, your setup would xfer more/hotter radiant heat from the lower element to the underside of your pan.
2. If you are using a dark coated steel pan, whereas it looks like Will is using a shiny aluminum pan, that would also xfer higher radiant heat (from lower element) to your bottom crust.
Baking at a higher rack position would reduce radiant heat on the bottom of you pan, as it's an inverse square relationship.
Placing the pizza pan on a rack above the baking steel may help too, ie shielding. though the baking steel re-radiates heat, it does so at a lower temp than the red-hot lower element.
Thanks Dave. I would have thought higher heat would be better, so the crust sets and the dough doesn't stick...
Indeed, I have been placing the pan on a preheated baking steel. I've used both a (transparent) pyrex dish and a dark colored tray with similar results.
Steels are good for non-oily pizza crust. Non-oily Neapolitan crusts can take a 900 F surface, and can endure a hot quick bake.
But with a layer of oil, if it's the oil that is sticking, it will carmelize and turn to glue at somewhere from 400 to 500 F.
Hence oily-bottom pizzas (generally pan pizzas) need baked at a lower temp, or at least less heat coming from below, and need longer to bake, in the 20 - 30 minute range, depending on if the crust was par-baked/pre-baked.
Interesting! So actually insulating the bottom might prevent sticking? But will the bottom brown then at all?..
Aye, there's the rub. Getting it juuuuust right.
I thought pan pizzas were supposed to be easier, looks like I was wrong there! Thanks, I'll keep experimenting :)
They are certainly less work per "portion" though anyway, so while less fun to shape and try many different combinations of toppings, they are more convenient in some cases...
Benny has a YT video or two on how he makes cast iron skillet pan pizzas.
Adam Ragusea has a YT channel with a cast iron pan pizza recipe, and one for an oven safe nonstick skillet pan-style pizza.
The Binging with Babish channel has a pan and/or Detroit style pizza video.
Serious Eats also has cast iron pan style and Detroit style pizza videos. Here's the latter: J Kenzi Lopez-Alt: https://www.seriouseats.com/detroit-style-pizza-recipe
Thanks, I've seen some of those. The differences in pans are limiting. And a round single portion pizza in a pan is not exactly what I am after anyway - that I can do on a pizza steel fully in the oven and get a very good result.
This Kenji's recipe inspired me to bake a pan pizza recently, actually, although I didn't directly follow it. Note however that he says to bake at the highest temperature the oven can go to, and place the tray on the lowest rack...
For obtaining the browned bottom crust at the same moment that the innards and top suface is baked just right ... It's a balancing act as to: pan material, steel/stone material if used, type of oil used, thickness of dough/crust, height/thickness of toppings, finishing under broiler(grill) versus a straight bake, and maybe finishing or starting on the range-top to brown the crust.
I find that grape-seed oil takes high heat better, but regular olive oil tastes better.
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For the big oven, I usually pre-bake the crust (including under the broiler), before topping, then continue under the broiler, with the cast iron skillet sitting on a stone.
This looks delicious. What is in your sauce?
The Sauce:
1 28 ounce can San Marzano tomatoes or a good quality Italian plum tomato
1 garlic clove
1 tsp salt
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dry oregano
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
5 fresh basil leaves.
Put all this into a blender and pulse until smooth
Thanks! Sounds delicious.
Will,
Do you use the juice from the can in the blender, or do you drain off the can-juice from the tomatoes first?
If you drain off the juice, do you throw it away, or keep it for some other use?
I am my mother's son! She would never throw out the juice! I use the whole can, the tomatoes, and their juice.
Even though my grandma never made pizza or did the Mambo! That is the name of the sheet pan style pizza for me. Sorry, Siciliano, Detroit, Grandpa
The toppings look yummy as usual. I realize it was a one day recipe for you but the 11 grams of yeast seems like a lot. Granny style is the only one I prefer to be sourdough.
My Sunday pepperoni from the warmest Ooni weather day of the year so far.
It's something else!
Thanks for stopping by MT. Here in N.Y. (At the pizza club) they can get very specific about what separates a grandma pie from a proper Siciliano pie. These are two criteria I know for sure. There may also be others.
Grandma pie must have the sauce on top of the cheese (upside down pie)
The thickness of a grandma pie would be about 1/2 the thickness of what is seen here. A third condition comes to mind. The grandma pie is cooked swimming in olive oil.
edited to address:
Yeast, 11g is 2%. I don't mind going as low will work for a same-day bake. What do you think, 1.5%, 1%, or even lower than that?
Regarding Detroit and other pan types, I am sure there are strict prammeters. I have no idea what they are! Smile...
1% for yeast is pretty standard with much less for retarded dough. I see a lot of recipes for pizza crust where the salt is 3% or slightly less. I never found pizza lacking in salt but maybe the extra salt makes the gluten tighter so it can be stretched thin.
I like the way the Ooni cooks the top of the pie but the bottom is not brown and crispy but more leopard spots or burnt. Like the earlier comments said getting the top and the bottom to match up is a challenge with pizza especially when it takes only a couple of minutes to bake.
2% IDY is a lot! I thought "normal" amount was about 2% for fresh yeast, and IDY is typically used at about 1/3-1/2 of fresh by weight... But I also don't think it makes such a huge difference, if you punch it down a couple of times so it ferments a little longer anyway.
As luck would have it, I needed more time than the "quick" dough was allowing me. At least I had the good instinct to punch the dough down and extend the ferment to two hours! For the last-minute bake, it was, I liked how the base turned out it was crispy outside with a soft tender interior. Very reminiscent of the type of pizza you would find in a Brooklyn Italian bakery! Smile. This formula with 20% semolina definitely has potential.
By the way Floyd. We, here at the bread club miss your baking contributions!
What dough recipe did you use and what temperature? I have the Koda 16 but I’m still working on getting it right.
This bake was unplanned and spontaneous! Very happy with the first test run!
400F total of 35 Minutes. The first post up top has the procedure.
There is an Ooni app with recipes and a dough calculator that is pretty handy. I used the 100% biga recipe on it for first time. It Is pretty simple recipe that I adjusted to a 47% biga like the Giorili ciabatta and put in my 60F degree basement overnight. The next day the salt, water and malt powder are combined in the mixer. A few hours proof and then divided (260 grams) balled up for another night in the fridge. The Caputo Pizzaria flour(blue bag) is nice to work with.
These ovens are by no means fool proof and require a lot of tinkering and practice which is a good thing. Getting the stone temp in sync with the flame is elusive but when it is right it is really good pizza. I shoot for 700 on the stone and the flame turned down to low and depending on how the bottom is cooking I adjust the flame to match. HTH
Appreciate it.