Ryan's Pizza Blog: August 2013

This was not just the first stuffed pizza I've ever made; it was also the first stuffed pizza I've ever seen (in person). There seems to be no clear, detailed, reliable information on the internet regarding how to make this kind of pizza, so I had to create my own dough formula from scratch, based almost entirely on looking at pictures of Giordano's pizza. I think I did pretty damn well.

Since originally publishing this post, I've made a lot of progress with this style of pizza, which I've documented thoroughly on pizzamaking.com. It starts to get good on page 4.

Update: This pic is of my second attempt at stuffed pizza.
Scroll to the bottom of this post to see a few more pics of my second attempt.

This one's from the first attempt.

Dough formula (for my first attempt):

100% Gold Medal all-purpose flour
45% Water
1% ADY
1.08% Salt
9.38% Corn oil
2% Sugar

I baked at 450 for 35 minutes. The excess browning is most likely due to the high percentage of sugar in the dough. I made the pizza only six hours after I mixed the dough because I didn't plan to make this pizza until six hours before I made it. Had I made the same dough a day earlier, the excess browning likely would not have been an issue.

I read on Slice that Giordano's uses hi gluten flour, but I seriously doubt that.

Here's a video that unintentionally gave me some hints regarding how to make this pizza, such as how thick to make the dough, how to do certain procedures, and other things that may seem pretty unimportant (like the fact that Giordano's uses pans with sloped sides).

Dough after rising for 5 hours, then being punched down, then rising again
for another hour (and agitated with a dough scraper).

13 oz of mozzarella and some Ezzo GiAntonio pepperoni.
In the linked video, Giordano's dough seems to have a pinkish beige color that you don't
see here. I don't think that color comes from oil, but I can't think of what else might
create that color. One Chicago joint uses food coloring, but I think that's Gino's.
(Update; I think the color is an indication that they use unbleached flour.)

After getting the top layer of dough into place, be sure to
make several holes in the dough to give air an escape route.

About 12 oz of sauce. My sauce was made of 28 oz of Stanislaus 7/11, with about 1 tsp each
of dried oregano, dried basil, and red pepper flakes. It was probably too much oregano.
Red pepper was just about right. Probably should have used a few more oz of sauce.

After baking for 10 minutes.

After baking for 20 minutes.

After baking for 30 minutes.

After baking for 35 minutes.

Add caption

Here is a cross-section of a slice I cut in half after the pizza cooled down.
You can tell by looking at the bottom of the crust that this was a same-day dough.

Update (8/15/13)
I made another batch of this dough last night (Wednesday), for Saturday. There is one huge difference with this formula (0% sugar instead of 2% sugar), but the other changes are pretty minor. I probably should have gone a little higher with the hydration, but I think it'll be fine.

100% Pillsbury AP flour
46% Water
0.6% ADY
1.5% Salt
8% Oil

To make 60 oz of this dough, use:

38.44 oz Flour (1090 g)
17.68 oz Water (501 g)
2.31 tsp ADY (7 g)
3.35 tsp Salt (16 g)
3.07 oz Oil (87 g)

On Wednesday night, I mixed this dough for three minutes (I think) with a spiral dough hook on a KitchenAid mixer, then transferred the dough to another bowl about the same size as the mixer bowl, covered it with some of that filmy plastic wrap-type stuff that's sticky on one side, and put the dough in the refrigerator immediately, where it will remain until Saturday morning. After giving the dough some time to warm up Saturday morning, I will scale into two 20 oz dough balls (for main crust) and two 10 oz dough balls (for top crust). This is to make two 10" pizzas in a 2" deep pan.

If everything goes right, I will end up using:

13.35 oz main skin
13 oz mozzarella
[Other toppings maybe]
4.96 oz top skin
14 oz sauce

Update (8/18/13): My second stuffed pizza. I made this dough Wednesday night (for Saturday).

I couldn't take many pics (because I was so busy making pizzas for a party), but these four pics should tell you quite a bit. The dough for this pizza used the formula in the previous update (just above here).