Egg in Pizza Dough?

[Liz_Barrett_PMQ]

Someone told me the other day that they add one egg to their pizza dough recipe in order to make the dough more workable. Have you ever tried this, and if so, what result do you get?

–Liz

 

[zippsphotos.com]

no egg here.

 

[Steve_Green_PMQ]

Yeah. I wondered about that myself. It sounds more like a ritual than an important ingredient… I asked PMQ’s Chef Bruno who has been making dough for decades in New York and he said that it was ?@#. Maybe we should actually put this to the test in the PMQ test kitchen and see if anyone can tell the difference? But it sure sounds like ?@#.

 

[tguag]

I’ve heard of this before. I think one of our competitors puts eggs in their dough but their pizza is garbage; so I dunno.

 

[smiling_with_hope]

I grew up in the NJ/NYC pizza world and the egg in the dough is more of hype thing than anything. There were shops that were known for that but I never could taste a difference. I know the amount of raw eggs in the dough was not that high. It is the same for the water. I have made pizzas from coast to coast and overseas. If the water is hard it makes good pizza from my experience. Walter

 

[bodegahwy]

One egg in a batch of dough? I have a hard time believing you could notice it.

 

[Tom_Lehmann]

Yep, we’re all on the same page. Unless you get up around 5% of the total flour weight in whole egg you won’t notice any change in taste or texture of the finished crust and even at that level (2-pounds in a dough based on 40-pounds of flour) you won’t see any difference in the way the dough handles, BUT it will impact your dough in other ways, beginning at about 2% it can cause your dough to color faster in the oven, much like adding sugar, it will also make your dough more expensive to make (nearly a dozen eggs per dough), and since we’re talking about fresh, shell eggs, it will also contribute to an increased potential for cross contamination (not good for business).
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor