First, a declaration of the enormous amount of respect I’ve developed for the many fine bakers on this forum! How you do what you do amazes me.
My confession? I hate working with dough. I hate the feel of it, the weird texture, and most of all, the infernal stickiness! I’m not even a fan of trying to stretch out a bag of premade pizza dough to fill a skillet, and the forays I’ve made into scratch-made dough, primarily here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/summer-throwdown-winner.333132/#post-2600343
and here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/a-pizza-tour-of-the-midwest.333519/
have been infuriating.
For Christmas, my wife gave me a copy of the Pizza Bible, and incredibly detailed reference on how to make the great pizzas of the world, often taking three days to make a pie (kneading, bulk fermentation, degassing, balling, second rise), then trying to coax it into a disk, top and bake, but that sometimes becomes 4 days for recipes requiring a starter for the dough. It’s best not to be hungry when starting out to make pizza in the ways of the old masters…. The book does give all the tricks for working with dough: when to work on a dry marble surface, when to work on a floured marble surface or peel, how to mix the right flour to use for dusting, when to keep the dough cutter and bowl scraper dry, when to use them wet or oiled, how to get dough off of the pan, how to detach plastic wrap from it. As I said, it is an incredibly detailed book. And none of the tricks work.
I’ve got a shop filled with all manner of adhesives, various cyanoacrylates, epoxies, aliphatic glues, hot glues, PVAs, contact cement, spray adhesives, silicone resins…and I’m a little familiar with dental adhesives and the protein glues that mussels and limpets make to stick themselves to undersea rocks. Working with any of them is child’s play compared to trying to make dough without it sticking together every surface with which it comes in contact.
I’m convinced that if one ever needs to instantly and permanently bond two sheets of polished Teflon together, the best product to use would be the wheat paste that results when water hits flour.
/Rant Off
The ordeal did result in some might fine pizza, in particular an incredible crust. The book opens with a 'master class', 30+ pages taking one through the process of making one pepperoni, and one white pie with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto.
My confession? I hate working with dough. I hate the feel of it, the weird texture, and most of all, the infernal stickiness! I’m not even a fan of trying to stretch out a bag of premade pizza dough to fill a skillet, and the forays I’ve made into scratch-made dough, primarily here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/summer-throwdown-winner.333132/#post-2600343
and here: https://www.smokingmeatforums.com/threads/a-pizza-tour-of-the-midwest.333519/
have been infuriating.
For Christmas, my wife gave me a copy of the Pizza Bible, and incredibly detailed reference on how to make the great pizzas of the world, often taking three days to make a pie (kneading, bulk fermentation, degassing, balling, second rise), then trying to coax it into a disk, top and bake, but that sometimes becomes 4 days for recipes requiring a starter for the dough. It’s best not to be hungry when starting out to make pizza in the ways of the old masters…. The book does give all the tricks for working with dough: when to work on a dry marble surface, when to work on a floured marble surface or peel, how to mix the right flour to use for dusting, when to keep the dough cutter and bowl scraper dry, when to use them wet or oiled, how to get dough off of the pan, how to detach plastic wrap from it. As I said, it is an incredibly detailed book. And none of the tricks work.
I’ve got a shop filled with all manner of adhesives, various cyanoacrylates, epoxies, aliphatic glues, hot glues, PVAs, contact cement, spray adhesives, silicone resins…and I’m a little familiar with dental adhesives and the protein glues that mussels and limpets make to stick themselves to undersea rocks. Working with any of them is child’s play compared to trying to make dough without it sticking together every surface with which it comes in contact.
I’m convinced that if one ever needs to instantly and permanently bond two sheets of polished Teflon together, the best product to use would be the wheat paste that results when water hits flour.
/Rant Off
The ordeal did result in some might fine pizza, in particular an incredible crust. The book opens with a 'master class', 30+ pages taking one through the process of making one pepperoni, and one white pie with arugula, cherry tomatoes, and prosciutto.
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