Fortune smiled on me the other day 
and agreed to help me out with some sticky issues 
(I crack myself up).
As I said, I got Gretchen a baking stone and peel for Christmas. We have been having a great time with it. We have been able to use it, with the recipe provided, to consistently make a nice chewy, crusty, delicious, authentic Italian bread. If we can make the next one last long enough, I’ll take pictures.
As promised, here are pictures of our Italian bread. Before…
…and after:
The thing is, this exercise has shown us the truth in the saying, “the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know.” You see, now that we’re getting a little more serious about baking, I realize that I don’t know jack about baking.
Just to clear something up right away, I can cook, but Gretchen is the baker. I really know nothing about baking, and Gretchen has always used pan recipes for her bread. Neither of us really understand the chemistry of dough, and it seems that is important when you start to go beyond the basic pan recipes. Looking around the blogosphere it seems that most people are like me: They love to make good food, but by and large, bread is something they buy from a baker, and pizza from a pizzeria.
The first thing we noticed is that none of our bread books talk about baking stones beyond acknowledging their existence. I figured maybe we just had the wrong books. Fortune tells me it is much simpler than that, “as for the stone, all bread is better on it. just plop any bread on a peel and bake it on the stone.” Ah, the Zen of baking, I was thinking so hard that I missed what was right in front of me. Fortune also had this advice, “you might also want to investigate a bread bell or ‘cloche.’ they are wonderful for boules.”
So, the avalanche starts: what is a bread bell? what is a cloche? for that matter, what is a boule?
(artwork shamelessly stolen from Outlaw Cook)
Well, it turns out that a bread bell is a cloche, because cloche means bell in French, and it is called a bell because of its shape, as you can see. You bake your bread inside it in your oven. Sort of like a portable stone oven.
A boule is just a loaf of bread that is not shaped before baking, or rather it is shaped, it is just shaped into a ball. Boule is French for ball. (Please excuse my artwork. Based on an image from Cambrooke Foods.)
The other problem we were having was with our pizza dough. Our dough was sticking to the peel even though we used plenty of corn meal underneath it. So much in fact, that we would end up with all of this burned corn meal on the bottom of our pizza. I wondered if parchment paper would help. Fortune said, “ my my my. most parchment papers aren’t good for 500. if you’re such a fan of slack dough such that your pizza crust clings to the peel and a small amount of cornmeal can’t serve you, then try parchment and lower the heat to 450; some papers are rated to 450. you might want to try flour as well… you know, make the pizza on a board, sprinkle the peel with cornmeal/flour, shove the peel under the pizza, give a gentle shake to dislodge pizza from peel, carry to oven, and then do another shake ’n slide to the baking stone.”
Ah, the terminology again, I did not know what a “slack” dough was. Fortune to the rescue with “a soft dough usually containing extra water. you are make breads with the bakers percentage, aren’t you?”
Right… bakers percentage… uh, sure we are… yeah, that’s the ticket… bakers percentage. sotto voce: I’ll have to look into that.
Baker’s Percentages
Each ingredient in a formula, including the liquids, is measured by weight. By using weight, the amounts of various ingredients can be directly compared to each other. The metric system is more precise and less confusing than the weight and measure system ordinarily used in the United States. In the metric system, units of weight and measure are based in increments of 10. This makes it easier to both calculate and resize formulas.
The reason it is important to weigh flour is that the texture of various flours and the degree to which they are compacted affect how much or how little space they may take up. Weighing flour leaves less room for error. Flour is the main ingredient in the baker’s percentage, and as such is considered 100%. If more than one flour is used in a formula, the combined total is 100%. As an example, in a formula calling for 400g of unbleached all-purpose flour and 100g of whole wheat flour, the unbleached flour would be stated as 80%, the whole wheat flour as 20%, and the combined total of 500g of flour as 100%. The weight of each ingredient, other than the flour, is expressed as a percentage of the total flour weight. In other words, each ingredient in a formula is independently calculated and shown as a percentage of the flour in that same formula. [The Artisan]
So, no. I guess we are not using the baker’s percentage, but I do think that our problem is that our dough is probably too slack — too wet. Fortune did say that “personally i, like suzanne dunaway think slack dough is all good. you might check also out [this page on dough troubleshooting].” Then Fortune offers this insight, “my pizza dough is about 62-63 percent hydration. but then i use durum and first clear flours with high-ish protein amounts.”
So, the flour matters as well. You mean you cannot use all-purpose flour for everything? Why do they call it all-purpose then? In fact, that dough troubleshooting page suggests that one thing to try if your pizza dough sticks to your peel is to “use bread flour — not cake, pastry or all-purpose flour — for dusting the table.”
I do not know that much about flour. I know all-purpose and whole wheat. A new Baker’s Catalogue came in the mail yesterday, so Gretchen and I sat down and thumbed through it. Sure enough, they seem to recommend the bread flour for pizza. Unfortunately for us, the Giant where we shop only carries the all-purpose. We will have to see if Wegman’s carries the bread flour.
I was watching The Essence of Emeril this morning. Emeril was making pizza and spent quite a bit of time explaining the dough. His was definitely much dryer than ours and it slid around on the peel much better than ours does (not at all). Oh, and he used flour and not corn meal on the peel.
So, with a little help from my friends, I have some things to learn about, some things to look for, and some things to try, and hopefully I will end up with, as Fortune says, “happy pizza!” 