Here in the U.S. their dough is supplied from commisaries. I haven’t gone back to see just how they make their doughs as of recently, but in the past they produced a fresh dough at the commissaries and distributed it as a refrigerated dough to the stores within their supply area. As a result, the dough as it arrived at a store was at least 1 day old, and it would end up being stored for another day or so in the stores cooler before it saw the prep table, hence, the dough was at least two days old when it was first being used and then it might be used over the next couple days or more. This dough had a lot of fermentation on it at the time of forming, and it is this fermentation that gives the dough it’s easy to open and easy to stretch properties. Anyboby who has ever taken our Practical Pizza Production course has seen this type of dough in action as we make it all the time. If you were out at the NAPICS Show this past week and stopped at the Test Kitchen you also had a chance to see this same typeof dough and the affects of fermentation in action. We were opening up 9-ounce dough pieces to fit a 12-inch baking disk without any problems what so ever, we were also showing how we get biochemical gluten development through fermentation by opening that same 9-ounce dough piece up to about 30-inches in diameter. The gluten film was thinner than paper and you could read print through it, and it didn’t tear. These characteristics are pretty representative of what you get when you allow the dough balls to ferment naturally for 16 hours or more. If you go to the RECIPE BANK you will find a dough formula and procedure that is designed to closely emulate the Domino’s dough in both performance and flavor characteristics.
By the way, the Domino’s dough isn’t a bad dough, it’s just what happens to it after it leaves the store that ain’t so good.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
