I have worked at several pizzerias in my young adult life and have made the dough at each place. Every place is pretty much the same and the dough I make at home is not very different at all. That being said, at the pizzerias I would have to "dock" the dough (pizza/breadsticks/calzones, etc...) so it wouldn't over puff during baking. I have never needed to dock my dough at home. I don't understand that, the only difference is the quantity. Flour, sugar, water salt, and yeast. It's all the same ingredients. I cannot find the logic in this. If anything, I would like my dough at home to puff up just a bit. Can someone explain this? My proofing process is wonderful, my dough doubles and even triples in volume, but never needs docking.
medtran49
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At the couple of open kitchen places we go to that make pizzas, they don't dock the dough. They do the stretch and twirl and then start topping. One is a coal fired place and the other a wood fire place.
Only places I've ever noticed dock marks on dough here are places like Domino's, Marco's, Hungry Howies, etc., though I haven't eaten pizza from places like them in years.
You can control the finished thickness by how thin you stretch the dough. I always stretch it out really thin, but I could have a thicker crust if desired by not stretching out so much.
Only places I've ever noticed dock marks on dough here are places like Domino's, Marco's, Hungry Howies, etc., though I haven't eaten pizza from places like them in years.
You can control the finished thickness by how thin you stretch the dough. I always stretch it out really thin, but I could have a thicker crust if desired by not stretching out so much.
Out of all the pizza places I've worked at and have eaten at while working there, I think Marco's was the best. That place was awesome but there aren't any near me.
This might answer your question:
Should I be docking my dough for NY style? - New York Style - Pizza Making Forum
Should I be docking my dough for NY style? - New York Style - Pizza Making Forum
Just because it’s sort of on topic, I’ll add that I do have one dough that I dock, and it’s the fastest dough I make. I can have it made, shaped, and ready for the oven before the oven can preheat.
It’s a no-yeast dough, made with baking powder, and it gets pre-baked for a few minutes before it gets dressed, and if I don’t dock it, it’ll puff up like a balloon, which the recipe didn’t mention, so I got quite the surprise the first time I made it.
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Not all flour, sugar and salt, or yeast, or water for that matter is equal. Flour from different manufacturers, or even just different seasons, varies. The same grains from the same field processed differently will give different results.
Similarly fresh yeast will give different results to dried yeast. One of my pizza base recipes uses honey not sugar. It makes for minor differences but they are noticeable.
Flour varies greatly in gluten content which affects dough massively and so on.
Just taking salt as an example, 1 tsp of sea salt flakes varies in content to 1tsp of manufactured table salt or mined salt (the UK has large salt mines under the ground). French grey sea salt isn't purely NaCl (sodium chloride) but includes impurities that in my view make it much nicer than iodized table salt which doesn't exist in this household. Similarly it varies from the Maldon Sea salt flakes and the Tasmanian sea salt flakes, all of which affect the rising in the dough.
So the same ingredients will quite easily produce different results.