Thursday, August 02, 2001


today i've received a letter about a major topic of this site, pizza. isn't pizza wonderful? i've spent years making fancy french and more recently italian breads. but at the end of the day, pizza is just the best thing. americans eat 11 billion slices of pizza a year, according to an industry publication.

and on average, we eat pizza every third day. to which i say, amen! but of course i'm not endorsing the questionable chain pizzas that serve soy-based "cheese" basted with cheap oil and dotted with small specks of green somethings that purport to be herbs. we won't even consider other horrors, like the low-grade stuff that's supposedly italian sausage or pepperoni. i'm discussing the more flavorful and healthy pizza you can make at home with fresh, premium ingredients!

my correspondent noted the difficulty in rolling out pizza dough. usually, with my recipe, you wait until the dough is well-risen and so it rolls out with ease. however, sometimes you're in a hurry and you can't wait the dough to rise the full 5 or so hours. maybe you're using a different recipe than mine because your family favors a different crust texture. the high levels of gluten preferred by all bakers for good, chewy pizza dough can make it springy. when you try to roll it out, it snaps back like elastic. you laboriously roll it out to 12 inches, only to lift your rolling pin and see it instantly shrink back to 9 inches!

to your rescue cometh the wonderful and renowned baker, lora brody. she has an excellent, all-natural product that will relax your pizza dough and make it roll out immediately. it's made of dried milk, malt, vitamin c, canola oil, and a pinch of baking powder. not only do these ingredients make the dough much easier to handle, but the malt and vitamin c are good for yeast, helping them to grow faster and better.

i must tell you however that using this product will make your pizza dough slightly less chewy. so if your family loves ultra-chewy thick crusts, you may have to resign yourself to wrestling with the dough. . .

posted by fortune | 10:19 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments