Do toppings/sauce affect dough performance?

[pizzafanatic]

Is it my imagination or do toppings and sauce affect how dough performs (i.e. rising and browing)?

example 1: half combination/half cheese pizza. The dough appears to rise better under the combination side and the cheese half is flat.

example 2: White garlic sauce (mine is mixture of alfredo, garlic and mayo). Pizzas do not seem to brown nearly as well as with red sauce.

Any ideas? I can’t see how toppings would affect either of these factors, but it happens too frequently to be coincidence.

 

[Pazzo_di_Pizza]

I’ll jump in and give my opinion on this one. Here is what I see and think. The amount of toppings on the dough could have an insulation effect, allowing for more rise before the baking of the yeast. If you red sauce has any sugar in it the outside edges of your dough will brown more quickly than your white sauce.

Keep in mind this is from home observations, as we eare yet to open. However I know my son likes CBP pizza while the daughter likes cheese. The cheese side is always a little flatter and done sooner than the other half. It has gotten to the point, I just make smaller pizzas, one for each so they can be cooked to perfection.

 

[snowman]

For the lighter colored sauce pies, have you thought of a garlic sauce brushing on the exposed edges? Is the bottom browning similarly between the pies or is the bottom also significantly lighter? The butter on the edge will help with browning the edges.