The Homely Scientist

Science and food.  Food science.  Science food.  There are so many things I could write about.  We’ve got the science of making beer, wine, and spirits (the science and study of the origins of beers is very interesting).  Then there is stuff like what happens to a turkey when you brine it (that’s a salt, sugar, water mixture that the bird is immersed in).  But what I really want to talk about is bread.  Specifically pizza.  I’ve been making pizza from scratch for as long as I can remember (yes, even as a kid).  Hey I even did the opening shifts at Pizza Hut and made all the dough for the day.  So, I think I have some experience under my belt on this one.

I’m going to give you my pizza dough recipe here.  I’ve been working on finding the best dough recipe for ten years.  I’m still tweaking, but this basic recipe is one that works great and is very versatile (it can be pizza .. thick or thin … foccacia … bread … whatever).

• 3 1/2 c white flour
• 1/4 c wheat flour
• 1 2/3 c warm water
• package of yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp of yeast from a jar … my fav)
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

Now is where we get down to the science.  First we have the yeast.  Yeast is a living thing after all.  When you get it out of the jar or package it is in something like hibernation, so you have to wake it up.  This is done with warm water.  But, when the yeast wakes up, it’s hungry so that’s where the sugar comes in.  The sugar is food for the wee beasties.  Now yeasts are a little gross when it comes for food.  As they eat they give off carbon dioxide (I guess you could say yeast farts, but it isn’t really like that), but this is a good thing because that CO2 is what makes the dough rise.

The other thing we have to deal with is gluten.  Gluten (which some people can’t eat … like lactose) is make up of chains of molecules and the longer the chains, the better the bread (generally, unless you want cracker like breads or biscuits, then small gluten is better).  How, pray tell, do you get long gluten chains?  Two ways, stirring and kneading.  I used to really only employ the kneading technique, but after making some wheat bread a while back, I’ve started stirring too, so this is what I do to make my dough (lots of good science here) …

First we have warm, not hot, water.  Water that is too hot will kill the wee yeasties … this is bad.  Water goes into a big bowl, then the yeast, then the sugar.  A lot of people stop here to let the yeast "proof", that is get all happy, alive, and giving off CO2 (the top gets all foamy and smells awesome).  I used to do this too (unless I was using instant yeast, but that’s a different story), but now I add a cup or two of flour and start stirring.  Yep, it’s goopy.  Stir for about 5 mins.  Yes, 5.  You should get to a point where it is really goopy.  That’s the gluten forming nice, long chains.

Now is when you add the rest of the stuff.  Science note about salt and oil.  These ingredients hamper (or control) yeast growth.  This is why they are added with the other stuff, not during the proofing time.  I stir with my favourite wooden spoon until I can stir no more, then I knead.  This is when you might have to add more flour to get the dough to where you want it.  This dough works, and will give you different kinds of pizza crust, depending on the wetness of the dough.  That’s the balance of water to flour.  wetter doughs make for tender pizza, very dry, thin cracker, crust.  I go for something a little on the wet side, but not sticky but also not smooth.

Now we want those wee yeasties to keep doing their thing and make the dough rise.  I warm up the oven a tad and turn the light on.  The dough goes into an oiled bowl with plastic wrap on top (you can use a damp towel too … the idea is to keep moisture in).  Why warm?  Well, yeast is kind picky.  They don’t like to grow and be happy if they are cold.  Too warm and they die, too cold and they just slow down and be lazy.  This is why I use the light in the oven.  It’s just right.

Okay, the dough needs to rise for about an hour (the usual doubling thing).

At this point … a punch down, knead, and you’re ready for pizza!  The recipe makes two pizzas.  I bake on a pizza stone at 500 degrees … perfect crust every time.

So there you go.  My little bit of food science.  Yeah, maybe I’ll talk about beer later (because, as you might know, beer and bread share the basic core ingredients).

Enjoy!  And no, you don’t get my recipe for pizza sauce.

Tags: channel theme day, food science, pizza, pizza dough recipe

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 7th, 2006 at 7:40 am and is filed under Channel Theme Days, Science at home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.