I hadn’t made a pizza in half year so it was high time that we had pizza. I decided to try baking another Capricciosa pizza (capocollo, mushrooms, olives artichokes and tomato sauce) and ensured that the mushrooms were pre-cooked so that they didn’t flood the pizza with their liquid during baking. To that end I dry sautéed the mushrooms after slicing them in sixths until they were nicely browned. The artichokes I allowed to drain in a sieve so that they didn’t too much liquid to the pizza. Finally, for the pizza sauce, I used a can of San Marzano tomatoes removing the tomatoes. I squeezed them open to remove the tomato water and then drained them in a sieve. After they dried for some time, I added some homemade red wine vinegar, garlic powder, salt, pepper, oregano and basil and squeezed it all to mix and breakdown the tomatoes.
(1) In your mixer bowl(or by hand) dissolve the levain and diastatic malt in all of the Final Dough Water except the HOLD OUT Water.
(2) Mix in the flours until well hydrated
(3) Allow to fermentolyse for 1hr
(4) Mix in the remaining HOLD OUT Water, salt, and sugar mix until well-incorporated.
(5) Slowly drizzle in the oil until well combined.
(6) Beat or knead by hand until dough is moderately developed. The dough will be sticky and elastic. If kneading by hand, use slightly wet hands and avoid adding more flour.
(6a) Allow to ferment for 1 hour before proceeding to (7)
(7) Oil your hands and a suitable container.
(8) Shape into a tight ball. I divide the ball into four smaller ones each for one 9” pizza at this point. Each goes into a small oiled bowl and allowed to proof for 1 hour before starting cold fermentation.
(9) Cold ferment in the refrigerator for 48-96hrs.
(10) Remove to warm up to room temp for at 3-6hr or so before use at room temperature, or you can ferment 2-3 hours at 80ºF. One hour before the dough is ready, pre-heat your oven on roast setting at 550°F or as high as it will go.
(11) Stretch the balls into your desired size. Top your pizzas, brush the cornicione with water then roast at 550F (as high as your oven will go) until the crust is browned and the cheese has melted. Spin the pie at least once to avoid burning due to oven hot spots.
(12) I bake in a preheat cast iron skillet that heats in the oven while it is pre-heating. I set the oven to roast and bake the pizzas in the cast iron skillet on my baking steel so that the skillet is quite close to the top of the oven. It only takes 6 mins to fully bake my pizzas.
Heat oven to 550ºF roasting setting, with skillet in oven on baking steel on the second highest rack about 1 hour. My set up with the baking steel on the roasting rack that set up is on the third highest rack because of the added height from the roasting rack so it essentially makes the skillet on the second highest rack.
Place stretched dough into skillet and top with sauce and toppings.
Brushing water on the cornicione prior to baking in oven, gives better oven spring and leopard spots to the cornicione.
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