The dough is fabulous, and easy to work. That said, I made a pesto pizza with fresh mozz last night. I am not exactly certain what happened, but it turned into a pool of oil on top, The mozz had disintegrated. I assume that the mozz became the pool of dough because the mozz that I used was too wet. It was falling apart and losing shape when I sliced it.
Jeff - I assume you used fresh mozz? That’s not uncommon. It’s why I don’t use it. In fact, I use whatever cheeses I happen to have around because mozzarella doesn’t have enough flavor for me and it’s kind of milky. After a few sloppy pizzas I just decided not to use it any more. slightly aged provolone works better - it’s basically mozz that’s got some of the water removed.
You can give a shot to drying it a little - tie it in a cheesecloth and hang that in your fridge somewhere, or use a nylon-mesh strainer suspended over a bowl in the fridge. If you put a weight on it, that helps too. I used to remove water from farmer’s cheese that way for an Easter cheesecake I made a few times. Should work in your case.
If you’ve got tomato sauce and runny mozzarella, you have a pizza that may be a little wet on top. That’s OK actually, but who said you need tomatoes and mozzarella anyway? There’s a place near my house that makes pizza exactly like that. The pies are good and since I don’t like the oven on in the summer, that’s what we buy. But at home, a few kinds of cheese and maybe some ham or sausage are the preferred toppings.
I’m down working the SoCal winemarket. Last night I hung out in San Diego at a Somm’s house and watched 4 Somms cook dinner. They worked really well together, I was surprised. One guy made a Caprese salad with 50 year old balsamic (amazing stuff,) and used burrata cheese instead of regular mozzerella.
The burrata cheese is kind of like a fresh mozzerella, but goouiey and stringy at the same time, but with much more buttery flavor.
They said some people use it instead of mozz on pizza. I hope I can find some because it was delicious. Maybe Tomasso can score me some?
Further experiments in my dough recipe. The trial this time was to use my sourdough starter (now old enough to be fully developed in its flavor) and then give the dough several days of cold fermentation in the fridge. I used about 25% starter (at 75% hydration) to 75% KA bread flour, and no oil this time. I was a little skeptical of my starter’s leavening ability, so I also used some instant yeast. Otherwise, my technique didn’t change.
I think I ended up with a more hydrated dough than usual once I got to the texture I was looking for; it was pretty wet when I took it out of the fridge. Also, it was full of air bubbles, much moreso than in the past. I had been a little concerned that the additional acidity would begin to break down the gluten after a 3-day cold ferment, but that proved not to be the case. The dough was very elastic and not too delicate to manipulate. It did bake slower than usual though. I pulled the first pie (a margherita) at 7:00, which was a little too long. Here’s what it looked like before and after baking:
As you can see, the cheese had just barely started to caramelize, but the crust was already pretty charred. The first slice was still pretty hot, and the crust was dry and crispy, with some bitterness from burnt flour on the bottom. Couldn’t really taste much flavor beyond that. But the second slice had cooled and was much more pliable. Here there was good flavor development, but I still thought it was overcooked. My diagnosis of the problem was that the cheese was sliced too thick, necessitating a longer cooking time than the dough could stand.
Here’s the second pie, with mozz, roasted eggplant and garlic.
The cheese was sliced thinner here, and cooked for 6:30, with much better results. Golden crown with some charring. Great balance of crispiness and chewiness, and the crust had great flavor. A touch of sourness and really moist. That’s a glass of '04 Malescot St Exupery beside it, by the way.
I’m not sure that 3 days is necessary to get the full flavor development from the sourdough. I’ll try it with a little less time on the next go round. In the meantime, I’m planning to head to Great Lake this week, a new-ish pizza place (and BYO) in Chicago that’s been getting some pretty rave reviews.
Greg,
Correct, it was fresh bufalo mozz, and really, really, really moist. I am not ready to throw in the towel on fresh mozz, if only to prove that I can cook a good margherita pizza, so I bought some at the farmers market today. I think that if I slice it thin I can get it to work. I’ll probably hang oit to dry before I use it, just in case. Otherwise, I have been using Trader Joe’s Quattro Formaggio, which works well.
Jamie, I am really enjoying your posts on pizza and bread. The photos are great, and I really like your analytical/“post mortem” musings on potential improvements for the next go-round. That’s what being serious about cooking (or anything) is all about…
Slicing mozzerella works better than fresh. Its low in hydration and high in taste. Fairway market, Brooklyn has a very good brand on hand.
Someone is milking water buffalos in your neck of the woods? Seriously? If yes, what area are you in?
Just east of Seattle. What, you don’t milk your own buffalo in Lompoc? The horror!
I am trying a slicing mozz next time. I knew when I opened the fresh bufalo mozz that I had a problem, but I had company waiting for food, and nothing else to use. Oh well.
From what I understand, the prolonged heat in home ovens breaks the fresh down.
Now if you can get a 2 minute pie going… ![[basic-smile.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/83717c74df9b0ce202453063bc4f11baf0ee6b8a.gif "smile"){kind=small}
David,
Thanks for the kind words and for indulging my obsessiveness.
Makes sense to me. No more fresh mozz (unless it is slicing mozz) until I build a brick oven in the backyard, which will be never.
2 points:
- for those who don’t have a Cuisinart or whatever: hands work fine. Really
- for fresh mozz I noticed the pros use it in the shape of small balls, not slices, and it seems to be working fine, maybe something to think about.
The fresh stuff works great if you have the right product AND the right technique. I mentioned this to some degree in the cheese thread, but you just have to manage the moisture content and temperature. If your fresh mozzarella is properly drained and kept COLD until the moment before it goes in the oven, it produces heavenly pools of melted cheese that do not break apart. I have nothing against slicing cheeses and they are vastly superior in some applications (like Sicilian pies, Chicago pies, etc) but fresh mozz can be really delicious on a homemade thin-crust pizza. If you look at this upskirt shot, you can see that the pizza was in a home oven long enough to get a decent char w/o the cheese breaking down.
And darnit, I still haven’t tried a Sicilian at home. Mike posted pics and directions a while back… must find it!
Melissa, go to the Slice section of the Serious Eats web site for some good looks and descriptions of Sicilian pies.
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The pic you requested:
Many commercial pizza places use Grande brand mozz in the 6# blocks - made in Wisconsin. I’ve cut it against a dozen or so other domestic brands, and it almost always comes out on top. It spreads better (use less) doesn’t pool up with grease, and has the right flavor. Some cheeses also will burn at high temps, which has to do with the butterfat content. Grande doesn’t have that problem.
Another good brand is Saputo, out of Vermont.
edited to add: why I posted this in a thread on dough, I have no idea.
I tried dough using only KA Bread Flour. Not nearly as light as with OO. Still good, just not nearly as good.
I am now convinced that the dough needs to be at least 1/2 Caputo OO. The good news is that I found a place in Seattle that sells Caputo OO Pizzeria flour in bulk, and at less than 1/2 the price of the kilo bags that I found at a supermarket.
I am trying my next batch at 75% all purpose and 25% -00-
I am seeking just wee bit more browning of the bottom in 8 minutes.