Pizza Dough Keeps Retracting.

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Cooking4Fun

Senior Cook
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
340
Location
Buffalo
I work at a pizza place and in this hot humid weather the dough really pulls away from the edges. We stretch and restretch the sheet pizza dough repeatedly, and it still shrinks down and looks bad by the time it is all made up and baked. Is there any secrets to kill the elasticity of the dough after we shape it?
 
Is the dough cold when you start working with it? If so allow to rest and warm up before working with it. I sometimes leave cold dough out for more than an hour depending on ambient temperature. Once warmed up, it will freely give itself to you.
Like GG said above.
 
"I work at a pizza place..."


super BIG RED flag.
which pizza place on what planet has not encountered the issue?
+1 for the question.
-10,000 for not asking in the right place......
 
Customer might not want to wait another 10 or 15 minutes. It is 85F here and warmer inside. It is either hot or in the cooler. We have very little control over environment.
 
Shape the dough in the pizza pan. Place it in the cooler and let it rest. While it is resting, Make another crust and put it in the cooler. Repeat. Make sure each crust is covered with parchment paper to keep it moist. Make as many crusts, in the various types that your place offers, as you think you will need. Make sure to organize them, with some kind of little label on the cooler shelf, to tell what kind of crust it is.

When a pizza is ordered, remove a crust from the cooler; let it warm for ten minutes, then gently press from the middle to the edges. Top it; bake it; serve it up. Hope that helps.

Another delicious option is to turn that pie into what in my home town is called a pizza pastie, also more traditionally called a calzone. The difference being that a pizza pastie has all of the sauce, toppings, and cheese that is on a normal pie, but with the crust fold in half so that the edges touch. The edges are then rolled inward a bit to seal the pastie. The crust is then brushed either with egg wash, or milk to make it gorgeous, and sprinkled with a bit of Parmesan cheese, garlic, and dried basil. It is soooo good. Make one for the boss and he will want to include it on the menu. Just be aware, make it small and let the dough rise. This doublesthe size of the pizza pastie, and spreads out the fillings just enough. These can be made in advance also, and just popped into the pizza oven when ordered. They can also be made in small, medium, and large sizes.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North
 
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Lots of interesting ideas. If anything though the humidity keeps the dough too saturated. Practically ozzes off the pan. And we grease the pans with a nasty solid grease stuff. And our calzones are largely made with ricotta cheese which I think is gross, and based on spoilage I think is largely popular opinion.
 
So what gives pizza dough it's elasticity? Same thing that makes it rise? No way to destroy elasticity without effecting other properties after it is stretched to pan?
 
Gluten gives the dough elasticity. If the dough has a chance to rest, the gluten relaxes and won't shrink after you for the crust. Carbon dioxide created by the yeast makes the dough rise.
 
Gluten gives the dough elasticity. If the dough has a chance to rest, the gluten relaxes and won't shrink after you for the crust. Carbon dioxide created by the yeast makes the dough rise.

Andy is spot on here. Some folks proof their dough in the fridge for up to a week, although I find a couple of days to be the sweet spot. Also, kneading it less will develop less gluten if you don't have the proof time to let the glutens relax, but will usually result in a more dense texture.
 
Pizza places I've seen have a wood or plastic tray with a dozen or more balls of dough in the kitchen and the just grab ball and go. I'd guess those dough balls are out most of the day until the tray is empty.

When I have a dough ball in the fridge, I leave it out at least an hour before I need it. Sometimes that's not quite enough.
 
Leaving the out close to two hours seems to work good. But that does depend upon how warm my kitchen is. But I never make pizza when its hot.
 
I keep wondering why no one trained him in what to do...
It's not that I wasn't trained in what to do. It's that the boss is cheap and there is no air conditioning, and the door is literally open year round. We can't get the dough to behave ideally. Particularly the sheet size. But speaking of the bosses they are idiots. One of them didn't know pickles are actually cucumbers until fairly recently.
 
When I worked at the pizzeria we always had a stack of dough balls next to prep table ready to go.

Had a taller stack than this but this is what they looked like. We had 2 dozen or more in the stack. We never had a problem with the dough. They got used pretty quick at dinner time.

1860266.jpg
 
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