Take-and-bake pizza is rising in reputation, and I consistently get questions on find out how to make it with out getting ready particular dough. At one time or one other, you might have been requested to organize a par-baked pizza for a buyer. What you truly did was make an early model of a take-and-bake pizza. Years in the past, we used to name them par-baked pizzas, or if we bought it from the grocery store, it may need been known as a deli pizza.
With the appearance of devoted take-and-bake pizza shops, plus the provision of take-and-bake /bake-to-rise pizzas in grocery store frozen-food show circumstances, the take-and-bake pizza has lastly taken on an identification of its personal. At present’s take-and-bake pizza is made on a uncooked, unbaked dough pores and skin, which permits the dough to rise throughout baking within the client’s oven, imparting a extra fascinating look, consuming texture and taste to the freshly baked pizza.
Whereas we will develop dough particular to creating take-and-bake pizzas because the take-and-bake chains have carried out, can we additionally alter our common pizza dough to permit it to be efficiently employed on this rising section? There are two primary approaches that we will take. Each name for modifications solely to the dough administration process, so we don’t want to fret about making modifications to the dough formulation itself.
The primary process of the 2 might be the best to implement. Let’s assume that the dough has been via your dough administration process and has simply come out of the cooler. You will have to experiment a bit to find out the minimal time to permit the dough to take a seat at room temperature earlier than opening and shaping it. Then, start opening all the dough balls wanted for take-and-bake pizzas into pizza skins. Place the opened skins onto wire screens and retailer on a wire tree rack within the cooler. Attempt to get the skins into the cooler as rapidly as potential after opening them. The item is to maintain them as chilly as potential.
As quickly as you have got a rack crammed with skins, permit it to stay uncovered for an extra half-hour, then cowl the rack with an acceptable plastic bag to stop drying. After the dough skins have been within the cooler for an hour, switch them to a location handy to the prep desk so they’re all the time close by when an order is acquired for a take-and-bake pizza. Take into account when making the dough skins that many residence ovens could not accommodate pizzas a lot bigger than 14- or 16-inches. Dock the dough pores and skin and place it onto a bit of oven parchment paper, or one of many ovenable trays designed particularly for take-and-bake pizzas. When you use an ovenable tray, it’s urged that or not it’s flippantly oiled earlier than inserting the dough pores and skin onto it. This may guarantee a passable launch of the dough from the tray if the buyer holds the pizza of their fridge for an extended time than really useful. Brush the dough pores and skin flippantly with olive oil, or blended oil, then gown it to order with sauce and toppings as regular. The pizza is now able to be wrapped and despatched residence with
the buyer. Some shops will ship the pizza residence with simply the wrap on it, whereas others like to position the wrapped pizza right into a field for added safety. In both case, be sure you mark the pizza “KEEP REFRIGERATED”, “DO NOT FREEZE” and add a use-by date, too. Present full baking directions with the pizza for each fuel and electrical ovens, and it’s most likely a good suggestion to additionally mark it with a “DO NOT MICROWAVE” label when you’re at it.
The second process is the least intrusive it requires the least quantity of forethought or preparation to implement. The one disadvantage to this process, nevertheless, is that it tends to provide the shortest shelf life and is least tolerant to any temperature abuse that the pizza may obtain by the hands of the buyer. On this process, the dough is dealt with utterly in your regular method proper as much as the purpose the place the dough is opened to kind pizza skins. As quickly because the skins are fashioned, they’re positioned on wire screens and saved in wire racks within the cooler. Make sure to depart the racks of dough uncovered within the cooler for a minimum of half-hour to make sure sufficient cooling of the dough skins, after which cowl the racks of dough with a plastic bag to stop drying. For a take-and-bake order, take away a dough pores and skin from the rack and dock it nicely, then brush it flippantly with olive oil or a blended oil, place it onto a sheet of oven parchment paper, or one of many ovenable trays designed particularly for take-and-bake functions. Make sure to flippantly oil the tray earlier than inserting the dough pores and skin into it, as this can guarantee a passable launch of the crust from the tray within the occasion that the buyer holds the pizza of their fridge longer than the really useful time, after which gown it with sauce and the specified toppings. The packaging could be the identical as acknowledged above for the primary process. The explanation why this process doesn’t give a completed product with fairly as a lot tolerance to client abuse is due to the potential for added fermentation time that the dough can obtain when dealt with on this method. Within the first process, the potential fermentation time has been lowered by as a lot as three hours, which may add considerably to the dough’s tolerance to client (storage time and temperature) abuse.
In some circumstances, complaints could also be acquired from the customers that the dough/crust doesn’t coloration up nicely throughout baking of their residence ovens. When you ought to expertise this, you’ll need to organize particular dough simply on your take-and-bake pizzas. The one formulation modification that you will want to make is to extend the extent of sugar added to the dough to five % of the whole fl our weight (fl our weight x 5 then press the “%” key and skim the quantity of sugar so as to add within the show window of your calculator). The added sugar will contribute considerably in direction of acquiring a darker crust coloration in a client sort oven. ?
Tom Lehmann is a director on the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kansas
