11.5 x 8.75 inch pan. 19 oz dough ball. Would like to get back to the basics on how to make a good square (rectangle) pizza. Oil in pan to crisp? Conveyor oven cook time and temp. I would like the dough to be about 3/4 inch in height. Need help. Anybody. Thanks
first, what kind of oven do you have? if it’s a conveyor oven typically it takes anywhere from 7 to 9 minutes to cook a pie that thick. Your tempature controls the color for the most part, the time controls the doneness for the most part. Try starting out at 8 minutes at 435. If it’s not getting the color you want increase the temp by 5 degrees until you get what you want. If it’s too dark, decrease the temp by 5 degree increments. If it’s not done increase the time by 10 second increments until you get the doneness you want, the opposite for it being too done. If you are making a “pan” type of pizza, which it sounds like you are. You do want oil in the bottom part of the pan. You want enough to cover it pretty well but not too much to have the pie swimming in it. Well seasoned pans are a must.
Thanks for the reply. Conveyour is at 505 degrees at 7min 50 sec. Pies look pretty good. But not quite crispy enough even with about a 1/4 oz of oil in pan. also want it a little thicker. tried a 21 0z dough and caused more problems with temp and time. Just too doughy.
Also what about letting dough rise/ proof. par bake? Thanks
turn the temp down and the time up. You should always let thicker crust pizzas proof before cooking them. Depending on your thickness, proofing at 90 degrees it should take anywhere from a half hour to an hour and a half to proof properly depending on the size of your proofer, how high you stack your dough and how much dough you put in there. To get the best quality, proof it then let it temper for an hour before you use it. Just play around with your oven until you find the perfect time/temp combo
Alo of those responses are “spot on”. I totally agree that you’ve gotta allow the dough to rise/proof before baking. I typically use a proof box at 90 to 95F with about 70% relative humidity and allow the panned dough to rise for 45 to 70 minutes depending upon the desired finished crust thickness. A good way to determine the MAXIMUM amount of oil to put into those pans is to add oil until there is just enough so you can tip the pan around in your hands and see it flowing across the bottom of the pan. Once you have determined this amount use only 1/2 to 2/3 of that amount. Any more oil than that will just make for an oily crust. I like to use a pastry brush dipped in oil to oil my pans. With a little practice you can easily judge the correct amount of oil to apply (no need to weigh). With an ait impingement oven you will probably be looking at baking temps of 435 to 450F and baking times of 10 to 12 minutes for those thicker crusts. If you want to par-bake the crusts you will need to drop the temperature to about 385 to 400F and look at baking times of about 4 minutes. You will need to do some experimenting to get the bakin time and temperature just right for par-baking. If the dough “pockets” like pita then you need to reduce baking time. If you see what looks like grease or oil spots on the dough after cooling (no, they’re not oil spots) then you need to decrease the baking temperature and increase the baking time. Those spots are actually collapsed dough. If the baked crust collapses upon cooling, it is not sufficiently baked and you will need to bake longer at a lower temperature. Some hints for par-baking; Remove the baked crust from the pan immediately after it comes out of the oven. Invert the crusts onto a wire rack or screen for cooling. When the crusts are THOROUGHLY cooled, they can be packaged in suitable plastic bags and stored at room temperature for up to three days. To use the par-baked crusts, re-oil the same size pan that it was baked in and place the crust back into the pan, dress the crust and bake. Surprisingly, thich crust pizzas made from par-baked crusts take just about as long to reheat/bake as they would when baked from a raw dough. this is due to the thick, par-baked crust being so difficult to thoroughly reheat. You will need to be very careful when par-baking those crusts to make sure you don’t get the bottoms more than just a light, sandy color. If you get them too dark they will get too dark (objectionably dark) when you re-bake the crust as a completed pizza. I guess you could change the bottom finger configuration on the oven that will be used to bake the finished pizzas in (reduce heat to the bottom of the pizza) but that isn’t practical in most stores. If the pizzas are to ba finished in a deck oven you can just put a screen or two under the pan to reduct the bottom heat and prevent burning the bottom crust. You might also experiment with using a bright colored pan to bake the “pizza” in. The bright colored pan will reflect a good deal of heat awaqy from the pan and this might be enough to control the bottom color. So, this would mean that you would be par-baking in a dark colored pan and baking the pizzas in a bright colored pan. It might be worth a shot to see if it works for you. By the way, try to keep the sugar content in the dough as low as possible, maybe delete it from the dough formula entirely as this wil also help to control the bottom crust color. Remember, when you are baking a pizza on a par-baked crust, you are only baking the top of the pizza while you are trying to reheat the crust. Remember, its already baked, you just want to reheat it and give it a little more color.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Thanks, I do not have a proff box. I sheet out the pans and let sit for about an hour at room temp. Maybe longer now that room temp is colder. It’s 5 degrees here in Michigan. Thanks for the help. I will try all advice.
No proofer eh? what I do when it’s cold outside… like now is turn my furnace up and get it to 85 degrees or so. A lot of times by the time I’m done with the first few rounds of dough in my proofer the dough waiting is already proofed, but that’s after two or three hours at setting in room temp. If you don’t have a proofer I strongly suggest getting one. Do you have a food warmer? a lot of times food warmers can double as a proofer. Check around for a used proofer, check online as well maybe you can find a decent proofer relatively cheap. But if you have a thicker crust dough you definately need a proofer.