Cooking with Myhrvold and Migoya's Modernist Pizza

[weinoo]

You’re  shocked!?!?

[Duvel]

6 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

I admit that I am almost shocked to say that I will probably make this again.

 

Welcome to the dark side 😈

[Bernie]

18 hours ago, weinoo said:

You’re  shocked!?!?

I agree. It's like when you were a kid and you heard the first rumors about father christmas.

[Chris Hennes]

Modernist New York crust, back to the original scaling (because I wanted a thicker crust today), topped with whatever I had in the fridge. In this case, brussels sprouts, roast pork, and padron peppers.

 

 

[Robenco15]

NY Style Cheese Pizza with garlic slices and oregano under the cheese which I think means it’s based on a Marinara in Mod Pizza. Forget which one. 

 

Dropped the hydration to 65% @scott123 and used a 300g dough ball @Chris Hennes. Central Milling High Protein Bread Flour. Very happy with this. Given the hydration was lower (and it could have used another hour on the counter proofing) I was only able to get it to 12”. I have a 400g dough ball in the fridge that I should be able to comfortably get to 14” so we’ll see how that comes out at the lower hydration. 
 

Otherwise, this was AWESOME. Cooked on my baking steel for 6 minutes at 550F convection. The sauce is a can of crushed Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes with 8g of salt. Only wish I had better cheese but was in a pinch so I went with Sargento Mozzarella. A friend is hooking me up with Grande so I’ll be set once I get that. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Robenco15 (log)

[Marcvl]

So, this is my first post on this forum and also the first time i tried a Modernist Pizza recipe. I dont know the name of the recipe but its the one that has very high hydration levels (75%) and adds diastatic malt. 
 

i had a very hard time with this recipe. The dough was incredibly sticky. It didnt form a nice ball around the kneeding hook. Some dough stayed at the bottom of the bowl and didnt get picked up by the hook. I thought it was all wrong so i started adding flour, and adding more, and more, and more. I couldnt get the window test working at all. So i kept kneeding (at least my

machine did) for 30 min or so, while the recipe only called for 11 minutes. Still no progress after 30 min, so i gave up and went on to the next step. 
 

at the end of the day, the pizza was great, but the dough was not behaving right. It would tear as soon as i started to stretch it. And it was still sticky. 
 

Any tips on what i am doing wrong?

 

marc

[Robenco15]

2 hours ago, Marcvl said:

So, this is my first post on this forum and also the first time i tried a Modernist Pizza recipe. I dont know the name of the recipe but its the one that has very high hydration levels (75%) and adds diastatic malt. 
 

i had a very hard time with this recipe. The dough was incredibly sticky. It didnt form a nice ball around the kneeding hook. Some dough stayed at the bottom of the bowl and didnt get picked up by the hook. I thought it was all wrong so i started adding flour, and adding more, and more, and more. I couldnt get the window test working at all. So i kept kneeding (at least my

machine did) for 30 min or so, while the recipe only called for 11 minutes. Still no progress after 30 min, so i gave up and went on to the next step. 
 

at the end of the day, the pizza was great, but the dough was not behaving right. It would tear as soon as i started to stretch it. And it was still sticky. 
 

Any tips on what i am doing wrong?

 

marc

Sounds like the high hydration Artisan dough. I’ve made it, it’s good, but high hydration doughs are not easy, especially starting out. 
 

Starting with the paddle attachment is helpful. Then once it balls itself around the paddle, scrape it off and switch to the dough hook. May need medium high speed to make sure you catch the dough. 
 

Holding back 5% of the water and gradually adding it after a few minutes of kneading with the dough hook (starting with the dough hook) is another technique you could use. 
 

I used to do it as well, but try not to add more flour. Defeats the purpose. Allowing the dough to relax for 5-10 minutes can do wonders. The times they give for kneading aren’t bad, but you shouldn’t start the timer until it comes into s uniform mass, so sometimes that can take a few more minutes. 
 

Get used to their master or direct dough recipes before messing with the high hydrations. Or don’t, but be prepared to waste a lot of flour.

 

Even once you form the gluten, handling and shaping them is another animal

altogether. It’s awesome, but tricky. Keep reporting back and post some pics too! 

Edited March 6, 2022 by Robenco15 (log)

[weinoo]

I bow to the pizza machers in this thread, who make such beautiful pizza. I doubt I'll ever get close to some of the pies pictured, but I'll keep plugging away, at least as long as the temperature remains cool enough to turn on the oven for an extended pre heat.

 

Two nights ago I started the master recipe for Artisan Pizza Dough (K.M. p 54). Never content with following a recipe exactly, when I divided the dough I wanted enough for a pizza bianca/focaccia and 2 pies. So instead of 360g dough balls, one was 540 grams, and two were approximately half of that. Last night, I used the doughs.

 

 

 

 

The pizza bianca was really good - I did spread a little sauce on half of it, to make pizza rosa; as can be seen, it practically disappears into the dough.

 

After the focaccia had baked, it was time for pizza. Oy.  I have never seen my dough stretch to such thinness (like immediately), basically because I kind of have no idea what I'm doing...

 

 

 

Oh, it was tasty...I just have no idea what the hell happened to the cornicione! This pizza was practically Roman in its thinness.

Edited March 7, 2022 by weinoo (log)

[Chris Hennes]

9 hours ago, Robenco15 said:

May need medium high speed to make sure you catch the dough. 

For the really high hydration doughs I use high speed. It looks insane, but I find that anything lower and it just sort of stretches the dough around a bit and it never balls up.

[Robenco15]

6 hours ago, Chris Hennes said:

For the really high hydration doughs I use high speed. It looks insane, but I find that anything lower and it just sort of stretches the dough around a bit and it never balls up.

I might flip it up to high speed to catch it and ball it up but then I’m back down in the 4-6 speed range. High speed scares me, lol

[Robenco15]

This is Modernist Pizza NY Style 14” cheese pizza (direct dough). 400g dough ball, but at 65% hydration. I mean, I’m not sure how this isn’t NY pizza, apart from the size. Was awesome and adjusting their recipe to 65% hydration is the only change needed. 
 

 

Central Milling High Protein Bread Flour, Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes with salt, freshly grated Mozzarella from a block I bought at the deli, cooked at 550F convection on a preheated baking steel for 7 minutes. Cold proofed for 3 days. 

Edited March 7, 2022 by Robenco15 (log)

[KennethT]

8 minutes ago, Robenco15 said:

This is Modernist Pizza NY Style 14” cheese pizza (direct dough). 400g dough ball, but at 65% hydration. I mean, I’m not sure how this isn’t NY pizza, apart from the size. Was awesome and adjusting their recipe to 65% hydration is the only change needed. 
 

 

Central Milling High Protein Bread Flour, Bianco DiNapoli tomatoes with salt, freshly grated Mozzarella from a block I bought at the deli, cooked at 550F convection on a preheated baking steel for 7 minutes. Cold proofed for 3 days. 

looks good to this NYer!

[Chris Hennes]

Tonight I started playing around with dough inclusions. I'm not sure these will ever be a good fit in the thinner crust styles, so I started with the standard New York Square, and added white and black sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Toppings are the Quick New York sauce, pizza cheese, brussels sprouts, and Roth blue cheese.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, Chris Hennes said:

Tonight I started playing around with dough inclusions. I'm not sure these will ever be a good fit in the thinner crust styles, so I started with the standard New York Square, and added white and black sesame seeds and poppy seeds. Toppings are the Quick New York sauce, pizza cheese, brussels sprouts, and Roth blue cheese.

 

 

How was it?

 

[Chris Hennes]

20 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

How was it?

OK - poppy seeds and brussels sprouts is not a particularly great combination.

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, Chris Hennes said:

OK - poppy seeds and brussels sprouts is not a particularly great combination.

But they're really good on bagels, so when Nathan does his tome on the bagel bialy kingdom, watch out! 

[KennethT]

22 minutes ago, weinoo said:

But they're really good on bagels, so when Nathan does his tome on the bagel bialy kingdom, watch out! 

brussels sprout bagel?

[Chris Hennes]

Tonight's pizza was a naturally-leavened Modernist Artisan dough -- you just replace the poolish with levain and omit the yeast. It worked well, but I think I prefer the commercial yeast version.

 

[weinoo]

10 hours ago, KennethT said:

brussels sprout bagel?

I was kinda hoping for only the seeds.

[Robenco15]

On 3/11/2022 at 9:47 PM, Chris Hennes said:

Tonight's pizza was a naturally-leavened Modernist Artisan dough -- you just replace the poolish with levain and omit the yeast. It worked well, but I think I prefer the commercial yeast version.

 

Nice! I’m going to make the dough for this tonight and bake tomorrow on my steel. 
 

@Chris Hennesdid you go from mixer to 20 minute bench rest to divide shape and refrigerate? Or spend longer at RT before the fridge? I’m experimenting with treating it as my sourdough breads. Autolyse, bulk ferment at 86F, preshape and shape and refrigerate. Bulk time I need to get nailed down. Autolyse may be too much but today it just worked well with my schedule. Thinking of trying a batch without the oil too. Richer doesn’t use oil (or Diastic malt powder) so curious how that goes. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Robenco15 (log)

[Robenco15]

Sourdough Artisan was fine. No pics. May have been a bit overproofed. Have not been having a ton of luck lately with sourdough pizza. Used to be something I made all the time. Weird it’s turned into something that’s giving me trouble. I’ll reevaluate and try again in a week or two, but the commercial yeast stuff has been so good I’m in no hurry. 

[weinoo]

As I've said before, I bow before the pizza gods in this thread.

 

But it doesn't mean I'll stop trying!

 

 

 

This is Modernist Pizza's Artisan Dough, no-knead variation...almost followed the recipe to the letter with a 14 hour bulk ferment, and then an overnight proof in the fridge. Dough then came out of fridge for about an hour and a half (while the oven is preheating) before shaping, and it's almost round!  However, note that I have a problem with the cornicione. And note that I have a lot of bubbles, which I'm wondering if it's because convection fan was on in the oven? Oh well, not that important - it was good pizza and made Significant Eater quite happy (which is all that counts, right?).

 

 

[weinoo]

P. S. I was out of pineapple.

 

P. P. S.

 

Edited March 15, 2022 by weinoo (log)

[Chris Hennes]

Waffle Pizza

 

Yes, really... this is a real recipe from Modernist Pizza. It's basically a Detroit-style pizza, baked in a waffle iron. The texture was not my favorite, I thought it had too much chew, but it was delicious.

 

[KennethT]

49 minutes ago, Chris Hennes said:

Waffle Pizza

 

Yes, really... this is a real recipe from Modernist Pizza. It's basically a Detroit-style pizza, baked in a waffle iron. The texture was not my favorite, I thought it had too much chew, but it was delicious.

 

That's.... interesting?