I've been working on a recipe for a sourdough or long-fermented Rhode Island-style pizza strip, and I'd love some feedback from people. I've attached a few crumb shots and a photo of the finished product (photos of a potato pizza, but also making red sauce ones)
I started with the King Arthur Rhode Island Pizza Strip recipe: https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/rhode-island-pizza-strip-recipe
Since then I’ve done some experiments increasing hydration, using a levain, a 72 hour cold ferment, adding a little rye flour.
My current formula is:
Levain:
55 g bread flour
55 g water
11 g mature 100% hydration starter
Final dough:
204 g bread flour
13 g whole rye flour
133 g water
17 g olive oil
5 g sugar
6 g salt
0.5 g instant yeast
The process is an overnight levain, mix the final dough, three stretch-and-folds, then a 72-hour cold ferment. After that I pan the dough straight from the refrigerator, let it proof for about an hour and a half, stretching every 30 m or so, dock it, sauce it, and bake.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with where it's headed. The crumb is soft and moist, the dough has good flavor, and the finished product is much closer to what I had in mind than my earlier attempts. During the 72-hour cold ferment the dough roughly doubled in volume. Once it was panned it relaxed considerably but didn't gain much additional volume before baking, which I'm still trying to understand.
One thing I'm beginning to question is whether I'm optimizing for the right things. Initially I was chasing sourdough flavor, but this is such a heavily sauced and seasoned product that I'm not convinced noticeable sourness is actually desirable or even perceptible. At this point I'm more interested in creating a dough with great aroma, a soft and tender crumb, and especially good keeping quality, since the pizza strip is traditionally not eaten fresh.
I'd really appreciate any thoughts on the crumb, the overall process, or the direction I'm headed. Does anything stand out as obviously over- or under-proofed? Is there anything in the crumb structure that you'd try to improve? I think for my next pass I’m going to bake a little hotter and longer, and cut the cold ferment to 48 hours. Thoughts?
by snglrthy
4 Comments
Looks great. I’m a pizza lover but not familiar with Pizza strips. However, this seems like a good opportunity to confess I’ve recently taken to chopping up 1/4 of a Detroit pizza into tiny squares, calling them “pizza nuggs” and dipping them in sauce as i eat them. Ive found it to be a good pizza portion control strategy. Is the idea the same?
I’ve never tried making my own, but i grew up in RI so I’m intrigued to try making it!
I would say maybe less cold time than 72 hour and possibly skipping the addition of instant yeast. That combo could lead to overconsumption of sugars during the ferment and thus the less rise in volume when coming to room temp. I’ve had this happen with a combo of starter with poolish.
I see how people hate this. But cold pizza strips on the beach is a great vibe
A friend of ours brings two boxes every year to our fantasy football draft. He takes a special trip to Rhode Island just for them. Every single piece gets eaten every single time. We jokingly call it “wet tomato bread.”