Greetings fellow pizzaiolos,
I'm continuing to try new methods with every pizza night. We recently came into possession of a 14 cup food processor and I was excited to try it as a short cut to kneading, but the pie gods weren't having it.
I started with Vito's poolish. After pulling that out and letting it rest, added the water, let it melt, then the salt. That went into the food processor with a teaspoon of olive oil and I pulsed it as I added the requisite flour. Once the flour was added I gave it the beans.
The food processor would whip it around a bit, then bog down for a few seconds, then whip it frenetically again. I'd stop and check it every 15 seconds or so. After several rounds of that (4-5) I noticed the dough was getting substantially hot (well beyond the 27 C limit or whatever it is, but I didn't think to put a heat gun on it), but definitely not at the stage of sufficient gluten formation. I had to break it into two batches to not overload the food processor. At this point I got frustrated and bailed, combined the hot half worked dough, with the room temp unworked dough, and kneaded for about ten minutes.
The pizza turned out…ok? Certainly edible but not nearly as good as the last batch with the same recipe worked only by hand. Pic attached is one of the pies: hot salami, low moisture mozz, and our own red sauce.
Anyone have success in using the food processor to develop gluten and have tips to offer? Grazie mille!
by meshmunkey
2 Comments
If it worked by hand, what’s the issue? If using the food processor, better start with cold water and possibly cold flour—
Do you have the dough blade? I found the cutting blade too long and cause the machine to bog down.