I’ve owned the famous #pizzabible for a few years now… and it was about time I took it for a spin. For the past years, I’ve been hand-kneading my dough with some initial direction and refinement from Scott Wiener, so I didn’t want to make massive changes when moving to the kitchenaid. I bake in my home oven, typically with a stone on top and baking steel on the bottom. Oven goes up to 550 thank goodness.

As background, My hand-kneaded recipe for the past ~2-3 years has been the following 63% hydration:
500 grams flour (Robin Hood bread flour)
315 grams water- never cared about temperature
10 grams roland fine sea salt (blue top)
4 grams active dry yeast

Key Steps for original recipe:
1. Hand mix, flour & dry ingredients first, then water and knead together
2. Let rise for 20 minutes covered in plastic
3. knead and portion to 4 dough balls (small personal size)
4. Rise 2 nights 5. bake after 48 hour rise

This worked well and we enjoyed, but then I purchased a kitchenaid mixer and wanted some guidance on proper pizza prep.

I went to Tony’s intro/master recipe as the foundation, but because I didn’t have diastatic malt or proper flours (Bermuda issues), I used his METHOD, but kept my ingredients/portions. The only thing i added was the 5 grams olive oil … yum. I did follow his sequence, which as many of you know, involves temping the water, dissolving yeast before mixing, bulk fermenting overnight, and then only making 2 dough balls rather than 4. I didn’t wait 24 hours before assembling the pies, but probably around 19 hours

I admit these were a lot of changes for me, but it was fun to align to a recipe like Tony’s, and I know I have a lot of work moving forward.

Key Takeaways:
1. Welcome new mixer and black residue on my dough beacuse of the new stainless steel! Googled it and all ok, although I trashed the first batch out of fear.
2. Loved Tony’s recs for the hand-knead/forming of the initial dough ball post-mixer… This was quite satisfying and I was pleased with the texture of my dough and ability to follow directions.
3. 24 hours later: Not sure if my dough was too sticky as there was residue on my hands after the initial bulk ferment… should I have added more flour before the bulk ferment? I added not more than 1/8 cup throughout the initial kneading.
3. Cooked the pies at my friend’s house… brought over my baking steel, dough scraper, semolina/flour mix, etc, and their oven only goes to 500 F but I was excited to try out the recipe. Hardest part was taking the dough out of the dough tray… as mentioned and echoing the sentiments from Tony.
4. I probably should have let the crust brown more on the bottom (FYI had no diastatic malt), but I turned the pie halfway through and also broiled at the end. 8-10 minutes cook time, not too worried about this part as it is easy to perfect along the way.
5. I had too much flour/semolina mix on the peel/bottom of the dough that the excess definitely fried up in the oven… need to be more confident about the staying-power of the dough rather than compensating with too much flour.
6. MUCH fluffier crust than I usually do(ugh), but the cornicone was nice (burnt a bit but not a bad taste) and there was a stable enough undercarriage…

Overall my taste testers enjoyed the two pies, and I’m ready to perfect the hydration of my dough… need more advice on #3, and will be able to work on the rest most likely!

Toppings for Pie #1: tomato sauce, roasted eggplant, pepperoni, fresh mozz (moisture squeezed out).
Pie #2: Tom Sauce/Pesto Mix, Prosciutto, Roasted red pepers, fresh mozz (moisture squeezed out), topped with fresh arugula, oil, sliced parm

<follow at @SliceofFelicia on instagram where I try to document my pizza adventures>