Originally posted by Rita Y:
Marc, that's very interesting. Are you referring to this particular dough or another one for its keeping qualities and reduction of the amount of yeast?
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Bob, this is a very flexible and forgiving dough, and works around your schedule rather than the other way 'round. I have refrigerated the (thawed) dough balls for 2 or 3 days and had no problem.
Usually, I scale up the dough recipe to use one 5-pound bag of flour. After mixing and kneading, I divide it into 9 portions for 12-inch pizzas, shape them into very tight balls, roll them in flour (I don't oil the dough or the pan), and wrap in plastic wrap. You can let them stand for 15 minutes before freezing or not. I freeze them until solid and then pop them into a freezer bag.
To use them, I like to retard the dough before baking, so I pull them out of the freezer one or two days before I plan to make pizza, roll them again (still frozen) in flour, and place in a lightly floured Pyrex baking dish (again, no oil needed). I slip the pan into a large plastic bag and put it into the refrigerator. The dough balls for 12-inch pizzas can be left out at room temperature for an hour or so before refrigerating to get the thawing started.
I leave them refrigerated until the next day (or two). Around 1 p.m. of baking day I remove the pan from the refrigerator and let it stand at room temperature for 5 to 6 hours (it is pretty forgiving). Then I stretch the dough (it should be pretty soft and very extensible), top it, and bake.
This dough does not need to be kneaded or risen before freezing. If you do that, in my opinion, you lose the rustic character of the crust and might have smaller air pockets in the edges.
I haven't tried refrigerating the dough balls for longer than 3 or 4 days, so can't speak for longer times. One day I'll do it if I don't get too much static from the family..."Where's the pizza?"
If you feel comfortable with handling very soft doughs, you can add a little water to the recipe (I do). The softer, the better.
Rita
Originally posted by StanHenson:
Paul,
I'm not saying KAAP is the bee's knees. It's just a very good, unbleached AP that I've found to be remarkably consistent from bag to bag. In pizza, like in barbecue, consistency and reproducibility is SOO until you get a feel for the variables.
If you want to spend some dollars and eat some GOOD experiments, I can't speak highly enough of Caputo 00 flour. An overnight pizza dough with Caputo, cooked on a hot enough fire to brown it, is a thing of pure beauty.