The Science Behind Pizza Dough - Pizza Volta (2024)

FAQs

What is the science behind pizza dough? ›

Yeast, a leavening agent, makes the dough rise. A living, single-celled plant from the fungi family, it ferments (digests) sugars and starches. Fermentation causes the dough to rise by trapping gas bubbles inside it. It also makes the dough more pliable and easy to maneuver.

There are many tricks to achieving a tasty, homemade pizza dough that rises into a beautiful pizza crust, such as making sure your ingredients are at right temperature, using half bread flour for a stronger dough and half all-purpose flour for a nice rise, substituting honey for sugar to help caramelize the crust and ...

This is because wheat flour contains two proteins, glutenin and gliadin , which, when combined with water, form gluten. As you knead the dough, the gluten becomes more and more stretchy. This gum-like substance fills with thousands of gas bubbles as the yeast goes to work during rising.

'Why It's Called Pizza'

'Defining' pizza, the image in the post takes its thickness as 'a' and radius as 'z' to declare its 'volume' to be 'πz²a', which translates to 'pi-zz-a'.

Improve the texture and boost the flavor of any homemade pizza by adding quality olive oil to the dough. Adding oil to your pizza dough makes it crispier once baked. The oil creates an impermeable layer that moisture, such as that present in tomato sauce, cannot easily penetrate.

Don't let it rise for too long, though.

“A few days' rise is fine and will enhance the taste of the crust, but any more than three days and the yeast will start to eat up all the sugar in the dough and convert it into alcohol, which will adversely affect crust flavor,” Schwartz said.

The more gluten, the more elastic, stretchy and strong the dough will be. Mixing gluten and water results in a dough that almost feels like rubber. Wheat flour contains 6 to 12 percent gluten, enough to provide a gluten network that holds the carbohydrates together.

The short answer is – cover it to prevent it from drying out. And there is no good reason not to cover. But of course, there are things to consider. We all know to cover our dough so that it does not develop a dry skin on its surface which can give it an unpleasant look and texture.

Some pizza purists insist that hand-stretching the dough is the only method to make pizza. Many home cooks, however, opt to use a rolling pin instead. Either approach can be successful, but you should go into it knowing that you'll make two distinct types of dough. With a rolling pin, you can make a thin, sturdy dough.

Under-proofed pizza dough is hard to stretch and dense. An over-proofed dough will stretch too thin and won't spring up when you put it in the oven. Warm-up your dough: Cold dough is hard to stretch and more prone to tearing. Let your dough warm up to at least room temperature before stretching for best results.

What is the secret to making pizza dough? ›

The secret to great dough isn't kneading or throwing . . .

It's good old-fashioned H20. “Water, water, water,” says Falco. “Pizza dough made at home should be 50 percent water. Pizza needs to cook longer in a home oven, which means the dough needs to be more hydrated.”

The final proofing can be done at room temperature or at a lower temperature to slow it down. Pizza dough should be proofed at room temperature for 1 to 24 hours, or even longer.

Shape each piece into a ball, and place each pizza dough ball in a separate bowl or tray. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for 5 hours on your kitchen counter so they can come up to room temperature and double in size. Once the second proof is complete, preheat your oven to 750 and 850 °F (400 and 450 °C).

When mixed with water and flour, yeast begins to consume the sugars present in the flour and releases carbon dioxide gas as a byproduct. This process, known as fermentation, causes the dough to rise and gives it a fluffy, light texture.

The main difference is that pizza dough is often made with a higher protein flour (bread flour is perfect). Bread dough can also be made with bread flour (of course) but some types of bread dough are better made with a lower protein flour like all purpose flour.

The physics behind pizza ovens is the principles of heat transfer, specifically conduction, convection, and radiation. The oven's design and materials allow for high heat retention and distribution, which results in the efficient cooking of the pizza.