Pizza dough and flour for pizza - Gorm's cold-raised sourdough recipe
Flour and dough types for your pizza from Gorm
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Pizza dough can be more and much more than the classic light-colored, low-fiber stuff we often work with. But keep in mind that good pizza dough is often made with high gluten AND high protein flour. So it’s not just empty calories and masked toast.
Over the years, I’ve developed a number of whole grain, high protein and gluten-free pizza crust dough recipes, and I don’t want to leave you out. So here are some tricks for a crispy pizza dough, whether it’s sourdough, durum or a completely different trick.
The Price brothers once said something like: “making pizza on a base of rye flour is a bit like putting studded tires on a Lamborghini”. In fact, it was in a review of Gorm’s in Magstræde 16 from my first year as a restaurateur.
The review was really nice and there are no hard feelings here. But I don’t agree that rye flour (and other non-traditional flours) cannot be used for a homemade crispy pizza dough. On the contrary, I think that the great taste and clear reference to more developed bread baking that whole grains can bring to a homemade pizza dough is an exciting twist on tradition and something that we here in the Nordic region can make very good use of with our local selection of ingredients.
For most of the pizza recipes in our restaurants, we use sourdough to provide the perfect crumb and crust, which, for us, is at the heart of a crispy pizza dough.
Then try your hand at the recipes. It has to be said that they’re not completely stupid as bread recipes either. Remember, a great pizza recipe and pizza dough starts with great bread!
MELET
Tipo 00
Traditional crispy pizza dough is made with Tipo 00 flour. For convenience, I’ll just call it 00 flour when we get to the recipes. It is an Italian type of wheat flour that is widely used in bread, pizza and pasta. The protein content is often the same as in good Danish wheat flour, around 9%, but the processing and sorting that underpins Tipo 00 means that its raising power and suppleness from gluten is better.
It is therefore a great ingredient to use in your recipe for crispy pizza dough.
Semola
And now I’m stepping on the toes of various Italian mammas – because I consistently use Semolina flour in my basic pizza dough. Semola is often used for pasta. It’s actually also called a cooking flour (as opposed to baking flour).
It is a type of flour made from durum wheat, durum flour, which has a great taste and a fairly high protein content of 15%. It adds a great baking and rising power to the dough and a twist to your recipe. This gives more crispiness and makes the dough stronger, so we can make ultra-thin, crispy pizzas that can still hold the toppings.
And as an experienced pizza maker, you also appreciate the pearling effect of the semola on the rolling table. An ingenious trick for your pizza dough recipe to make a great homemade pizza.
Some of the flour we use in our pizzas comes from Agrainproducts.
Read also: best pizza Copenhagen. Going to an Italian restaurant in Copenhagen? Then read on. Read more here if you’re looking for pizza in Køge.
TYPES OF PIZZA DOUGH (NOT EXHAUSTIVE)
SURDEY
Every self-respecting, serious pizza maker has a sourdough starter on hand. A sourdough starter is easy to start and maintain, and it adds great flavor and texture to your pizza. You can do without sourdough, but why settle? When it’s easy… Let us help you get started with a sourdough recipe for a crispy pizza dough.
Take a container with a lid that can hold a couple of liters. I use an old 5 liter jar that has had olives in it.
Make sure it is completely clean. It’s a good idea to scald it.
Now add approx. 3 dl water and 3 dl 00 flour and whisk together.
Leave the jar at room temperature on the kitchen counter and keep it out of direct sunlight. Feed and water it daily: a heaping tablespoon of flour and a splash of water every day, then give it a whisking so that air gets to the bottom of the jar and it doesn’t start to rot down there.
After 4-5 days, your sourdough should smell like beer and bubble a little when you’ve fed it.
It’s alive! You’ve brought a living organism to life and are ready to bake delicious bread and pizza. But now it’s also your responsibility to care for it. It’s your kitchen baby – a good, well-cared for sourdough!
If you know you won’t be using your sourdough for a while, refrigerate it after a feeding and it can hibernate for up to 14 days. When you want to wake it up again, give it a good, big meal and after 24 hours it should be up and running again.
If your sourdough starts to smell like fart, it’s spoiled and needs to be thrown out. Luckily, you have this great recipe and can create another homemade, crispy pizza dough in no time.
If the sourdough starts to smell of lactic acid (yogurt) or vinegar, pour out just over half and dilute to the original level with water and flour. Then the acid balance should return to normal – take a sniff and see if you’ve managed to get the beer smell back.
Did I say it was easy? Okay, maybe there are easier things to do, but it’s nice and you don’t have to buy a dog if you need someone to look after, care for and show some attention. Or chat with. You can do the same with your sourdough, sure. And you’ll get the best homemade pizza dough to impress friends or family.
TIP: If you want to cheat the sourdough flavor (you can’t cheat the effect of the enzymes that sourdough provides), add a little apple vinegar to your dough, just a tablespoon gives the bread a nice, tart flavor and you’ll fool most people.
PREDOUGH
If you’re a true pizza fanatic, then this starter recipe is a must know when we get to the basic dough.
The pre-dough for your final homemade pizza dough is made to achieve that nice, tangy flavor in the bread, and it is also used as the leavening agent in the dough – instead of yeast. With pre-dough, you get a lot of the flavor from the sourdough, but you don’t have to be in the hustle and bustle of tending to it all the time. Make the pre-dough the day before and refrigerate. However, your pre-dough has the best flavor – I think – when it contains sourdough. The best of both worlds combined.
Remember that there is an expiration date on the starter dough; it doesn’t last forever, unlike sourdough, which you have for life if you look after it properly.
FORDEJ:
1 dl. sourdough
1 dl. cold water
a pinch of yeast, a few grams
250 gr flour, preferably OO flour for pizza
Stir all ingredients together thoroughly.
Let it rest overnight in a large, spacious bowl on the kitchen counter (or for a few days in the fridge).
The pre-dough is now ready to be the leavening agent in your pizza or bread dough, and you are now free to use more yeast further in the process.
If you bake a lot and often, keep putting away the starter every time you bake. It will keep for 1-2 weeks in the fridge.
The basic dough, amazingly good and easy:
This is the easy pizza dough recipe. Actually, we don’t do it much differently in restaurants, but we base our recipe on sourdough, make the starter and let it cold rise overnight to develop the optimal flavor in the pizza base (but you can easily do that with the starter recipe coming soon). But you can skip the long process and still get a great result.
INGREDIENTS (FOR 2-4 PIZZAS)
1.5 dl cold water
10g yeast (can be replaced by a handful of starter dough)
1 tsp. sugar approx. 200 g flour (preferably OO flour)
approx. IOO g flour, semolina (if you can’t get it, substitute with 00 flour)
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. salt rned top
How to proceed
Mix water, yeast, (sourdough) and sugar together. The sugar gives the yeast and sourdough something to live on. Once dissolved, add 1/2 part of the OO flour and 1/2 part of the semolina flour. Stir this until there are no more lumps.
Add salt and oil, stir a little, then add the rest of the flour in two batches (if the dough feels too wet, add more OO flour). And then knead away. The dough needs to be activated and it’s all about manpower (or girlpower). After 10-15 min. the dough should start to become smooth and supple to the touch. Make a cut in the dough with a sharp knife and check if it is shiny on the inside.
Let the dough rise in the fridge for an hour or until doubled in size (it’s best to make it the day before, but it’s not ultra important).
Remove the dough and cut it into 160g buns. Knead the buns by folding in towards the same point in the bun to give it a smooth and resilient surface. The ball should straighten up on its own when you pinch it – then it’s ready to knead. Place the buns on a tray and let rest for 30-60 minutes.
Now you’re ready to roll out your delicious, thin and pliable pizza bases with a homemade pizza dough.
Note: Many people will knead the dough ball a few times again just before rolling out. You want to go the extra mile and give it one last ride, right? Do NOT do this. No way, no how. You just reactivate the gluten and the dough becomes very difficult to roll out and will contract all the time. The gluten needs to be activated during kneading to make the dough supple, but it needs to have “settled down” by the time it’s time to make pizza.
And yes, the dough can also be kneaded in a food processor, but then you don’t get any exercise!
THE BEST DURUM DOUGH – NO SHORTCUTS
Now that you’ve got the recipe for the easy basic dough, here’s the recipe for the amazing durum pizza dough that requires time and preparation and no skipping over low yeasts.
Ingredients (For 2-4 pizzas)
1-2 dl starter made with sourdough
1.5 dl cold water
approx. 250 g OO flour
approx. 125 g flour, sernola rnel
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. salt with top
How to make the pizza
You need to start the day before you’re going to make the pizza, and of course you’ve done your prep work with sourdough and starter dough in this case. Like I said, no shortcuts.
Mix the water and pre-dough together. Once well mixed, add 1/2 part of the 00 flour and 1/2 part of the semolina flour. Stir this until there are no more lumps.
Add salt and oil, stir a little, then add the rest of the flour in two batches (if your pizza dough feels too wet, add more flour). Then knead as much as you can to activate the dough. After 10-15 min. the dough should start to become smooth and supple to the touch. Make a cut in the dough with a sharp knife and check if it is shiny on the inside. This is a sign that you have activated the gluten in the dough.
Let your durum pizza dough rise in the fridge until the next day – a cold rise pizza dough.
Remove the dough and cut it into 160g buns. Knead the buns by folding in towards the same point in the bun to give it a smooth and resilient surface. The ball should straighten up on its own when you press it. Place them on a tray and let them rest covered for 30-60 minutes.
Then the dough is ready to be rolled out.
NOTE: (You get this warning with every dough recipe) Many people end up kneading the dough ball a few more times just before rolling it out. You want to go the extra mile and give it one last ride, right? Do NOT do this. No way, no how. You just activate the gluten again and the dough becomes very difficult to roll out and will contract all the time. Gluten needs to be activated in the kneading process so that the dough becomes
smooth, but it needs to be “settled” when making pizza.
Read also: Italian restaurant and pizza Roskilde
psssst... briefly about mozzarella
– no homemade pizza recipe without mozzarella!
Mozzarella deserves a little attention, in fact, a small chapter of its own in this book. This fantastic fresh cheese is available in many different varieties and qualities.
Of course, a Margherita should be made with Bufala mozzarella from Campania, the fresher the better. But remember, pizza baking is all about creating a balanced flavor experience, a meal in balance. Here, the fatty Bufala can be too much on pizzas with other heavy toppings. So in this book, I will alternate between mozzarella on lighter dairy blends and the heavy, fatty variety.
As a general rule of thumb, vegetarian pizzas often benefit from a good, fatty mozzarella filling. And that pizzas with heavier, animal-based toppings are better served with a lighter version of mozzarella.
And there is NO such thing as dried, shredded mozzarella or cheese toppings for that matter. It’s a mortal sin and it never had anything to do with mozzarella. Even cheap, fresh mozzarella is far better than pre-shredded, potato flour-faced crap cheese. And you’ll need about 1/2 a mozzarella per pizza, so you won’t save many pennies by opting out of the fresh variety.
You just have too much and too bad cheese on your pizza by using the strips – and who wants that?
Read also: Take away Roskilde
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