If You Can't Find New York Pizza Make It, Stupid! (Part 3)

Hopefully by now you have read the other two segments on making New York pizza.  We have covered everything from some simple not well known basics (i.e. using high gluten flour)  to a very complicated recipe from Jeff Varasano.  And if you are anything like me you have tried all of these techniques in varying combinations and had some great pizzas and some bad ones.

So this final post on the subject is really about introducing consistency into your pizza recipe so you can turn out a great New York pie over and over again.  After reading all these resources it is easy to see that baking is as much a science as it is an art.   When one is dealing with Art and Science it is best to learn from a master.  Who better to turn to then the master baker himself Peter Reinhart.

The Perfect recipe | Instant Yeast | Consistency

After years of making pizzas using the previously mentioned resources I stumbled across Peter Reinhart's book titled The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread. Peter Reinhart is a baking instructor at Johnson & Wales University and a professional baker.  In his book is a very detailed recipe for pizza dough that gets really specific on some of the techniques we have discussed.  Even better when you try this recipe you will get amazingly consistent results.  I won't reprint the recipe here but it has been reprinted on other blogs.  If you want to see a scaled back version of the recipe check out Heidi Swanson's 101 cookbooks blog.

The first thing I took away from Peter's book was what yeast to use.  Until I read Peter's book I was stuck between using Active Dry Yeast or Using a Sourdough yeast culture as described in Jeff's recipe.   I always got inconsistent results with ADY and I found Jeff's Sourdough technique to be immensely time consuming (note if you are interested in trying the sourdough technique you can read Ed Wood's Classic Sourdoughs: A Home Baker's Handbook).  Peter's recipe was the first I had seen exclusively calling for instant yeast.   I have found instant yeast much easier to use and my dough appears to come out much better.   Much like high gluten flour, instant yeast is hard to come by in your typical supermarket.  I purchased mine from our local Cash and Carry. 

The next great part of Peter's recipe is the wetness of the dough.  Peter describes what the dough should look and feel like better than any recipe I have read.  This is really helpful since a lot of baking involves just knowing what the dough should feel like.  In addition the weights and volume measurements he provides give truly consistent results.

Finally Peter gives very precise instructions on rise times and locations.  I think this is the most critical and important component of this recipe.   Until I read Peter's recipe I was all over the map with my rise times and where I allowed the dough to rise.  Dominic's book calls for a 2 hour rise prior to refrigeration where Jeff's recipe has a completely different solution.   If I follow Peter's recipe to the "T" my dough comes out perfect almost every time.  Even better the dough is VERY easy to work with!

Closing thoughts

If  you decided to embark on the quest to make a great New York pizza I hope these past few posts help you along the way.  To recap some of the key points in these posts:

• Try and find high gluten flour it will help you make dough that stretches with out breaking
• Let your dough rise for at least 24 hours in the refrigerator  (I prefer3 days)
• Your dough should be fairly wet with a hydration level of around 60% or higher
• Make your sauce from uncooked San Marzano tomatoes
• High Heat is critical to a successful pizza
• Consider using instant yeast

Until next time happy New York pizza making!