Crispy/crunchy NY style pizza crust...

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kris396

Assistant Cook
Joined
Sep 11, 2011
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2
Hi! My girlfriend and I have been (unsuccessfully) trying to make our own pizza rolls similar to Totinos frozen pizza rolls.
06-totinos-pizza-rolls.jpg


Anyway, we live on long island, NY where there are thousands of NY style pizza parlors. One thing that totinos pizza rolls AND NY pizzas have in common is they tend to have a dry, crunchy crust. We are running into two problems though.

1) no matter what we try, we cannot get the crust to come out crispy/crunchy. I have even purchased a pizza stone which we tried the other day and the crust was definitely different but still nothing like a typical pizza from a pizza parlor around here.

2) it seems extremely hard to get the dough to roll out very thin. It seems too elastic and even after you roll it out, it just wants to retract back and thicken up after a few minutes. We made the pizza rolls similar to raviolis. We rolled out the dough as thin as we could get it, cut out pieces using a wine glass as a template and put the top piece over the bottom after putting sauce and cheese in. The problem was, they were way too doughy and thick.

I am not sure if pizza rolls such as totinos are fried? I was hoping we could get away with baking pizza rolls for health reasons and I feel like if we could get the dough to bake crunchy and thin then we'd be able to get a much better result.

Any advice is appreciated!! thanks!

Edit: just for critique, this is the recipe we used: http://americanfood.about.com/od/pizzainsideandout/r/nypd.htm

We used general purpose flower, coated the tops of the pizza rolls in olive oil and corn meal (I thought this would brown the top but it didn't). We DID NOT refrigerate the pizza dough, we simply used it after it had risen for about 2 hours. Not sure if that may have made some kind of difference in the workability of the dough?
 
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Well that's a very fine attempt.
I would think one of those pasta rollers like what attaches to a stand mixer would work for getting the dough thin. It's what folks use to make ravioli, too. Big bucks though.
Personally, if I was trying this, I'd deep fry them, drain, freeze until I wanted some, then pop into the oven. Those look very good though.
 
Kris,
They are not made with pizza dough! Try this:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp salt
1/4 cup shortening
1 1/3 milk
veg oil for frying

Mix flour , baking powder and salt.
Cut in the shortening; add milk , mix into a soft dough, knead till smooth (4-5 mins),let rest for 1/2 hour.
roll thin about 1/8 " , fill then fry in 1" of oil @ 350-375.
 
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from your comment:
"1) no matter what we try, we cannot get the crust to come out crispy/crunchy."

from the cited link:
"A basic "Big Apple" pizza dough recipe. This pizza dough is built for that signature thin-crust, "fold-able" slice New York is famous for."

as salt&pepper sez, you're probably using the wrong dough. when was the last time a NY thin crust folded like "crispy/crunchy" ?

pizza dough with a well developed gluten will want to "shrink" - that's an indication you've done the dough making process quite correctly! to make it thin - use a roller. if it "shrivels up" - let it rest a few minutes, then roll it out again/further. the 'shrink up' thing is quite a well known 'phenomena' regards pizza dough - so go with the flow & the "known solutions"

looking at the pix, those little bubbles on the surface sure make me suspect it's been deep fried.
 
Yeah, I am pretty sure pizza rolls are deep fried, but I haven't eaten them since I was a kid.

And likely the dough isn't a pizza crust either, maybe more like what salt and pepper posted. This type of dough would be much easier to work with in a factory situation. Salt and pepper's recipe might be on the right track because there is very little leavening compared to the amount of flour so they will only puff slightly.

I don't think that you can even get close to the results you desire unless you deep fry them.

I bet something like an egg roll wrapper might get you closer, as long as you fry it.
 
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PAcanis, just to be clear those aren't mine, that's a picture of Totinos pizza rolls that I dug up from google. Wish mine looked that good! lol

Thanks all for your replies. Thinking about it more, I am fairly sure totinos are fried and I will definitely try the recipe salt and pepper gave (thanks btw!).

Still one mystery though. I know NY pizza is typically foldable/floppy. Yet that usually seems to be from the grease in the cheese soaking through the crust possibly? I just had a slice of pizza from a random pizzeria today and I paid close attention to the crust. The outside edge of the crust was crunchy on the outside. Sort of chewey inside but it definitely had a hard/crispy shell that would 'break' if you tried to snap it in half. The bottom of the pizza was definitely brown and crispy looking. When we bake our pizza dough, the bottom comes out white and not really very 'crunchy' or hard. I found some pictures on the internet to illustrate what I am probably failing to describe...

Google Images

http://theeatenpath.com/2010/08/02/...ave-park-slope-greenwood-heights-brooklyn-ny/

The crust seems to be very airy in ny pizza, the crust I was making was coming up very doughy almost like I was baking bread. hmm


The crust is very thin, foldable yet the bottom and crust still kind of flakes/breaks.

Thanks for the replies everyone! All of your advice is much appreciated. :chef:
 
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I am no expert, but I have read that bread flour, as the recipe references, yields a crispier pizza crust than AP which renders a more chewy one.
 
Since this thread went from pizza rolls to pizza dough, lets talk about flour. The key to a good crust. (+ oven temp & using a good pizza stone)
Bread flour will give you a airy crust if not over worked, if over worked , it gets tough.
What we are looking for is a high gluten, fine, flour. Sometimes hard to find.
11 to 12 persent gluten and 00 fine flour.
To compensate I use white all natral unbleached flour and pastry or cake flour at about 5 to1 cups. That is 1 cup pastry or cake flour to 5 cups white flour.
If you want to purchase the real thing (00 high gluten) look up Molino Caputo flour on the net.
One more thing that makes tough dough is adding oil (olive) to the dough! Add it after its rolled out.
Knead dough for at least 30 minutes and let it rise for 4 hours, then punch down and let it rise 2 more hours. Time is flavor! To sweeten crust add more salt, NOT sugar ,to the dough mix. Also, add salt after you mix in the 1st cup of flour. Not before.
 
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from your comment:
"1) no matter what we try, we cannot get the crust to come out crispy/crunchy."

from the cited link:
"A basic "Big Apple" pizza dough recipe. This pizza dough is built for that signature thin-crust, "fold-able" slice New York is famous for."

as salt&pepper sez, you're probably using the wrong dough. when was the last time a NY thin crust folded like "crispy/crunchy".

lots of times.

there's thin crust pizza that's foldable, and then there's really thin crust pizza that sorts cracks when you try to fold it. both are good. it depends on your preference.

have you had many pizzas in ny, dc? if you want the cracker type crust, you may have to order it extra thin, well done. still, some places just can't do that.
but a bad pizza in ny is still better than a good day at work, to paraphrase...

kris, if your dough keeps shrinking beyonnd reason, it's too cold. let it warm up for a while, then you'll be able to stretch it better.

and yes, those things are definitely fried. or par fried, anyway. after a quick fry in the factory, they're frozen so that that can be baked at home.
 
lots of times.

there's thin crust pizza that's foldable, and then there's really thin crust pizza that sorts cracks when you try to fold it. both are good. it depends on your preference....

My preference is to slice it again. If I wanted a folded pizza slice, I'd order a calzone.
:LOL::LOL::LOL:

I love a cracker thin crust, but there's only one place around here that makes that style. Good stuff. All the ingredients jump out at you when the crust doesn't take over... but that's another thread ;)
 
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