Cape Coral Now: recipe for pizza dough whole wheat

recipe for pizza dough
All purpose healthy whole wheat pizza dough

Makes one large pizza crust or six “party size” individual pizzas
Ingredients:
1 packet of yeast or fast rise yeast (don’t use pizza dough yeast)
3/4 cups warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil (or other heart healthy oil) 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
Directions:
To make crust, dissolve the yeast into the warm water.
Ad add oil and salt to that mixture.
Add the the flours and knead them into the liquid mixture using a dough hook on your stand mixer.
Cover and let dough rise in a warm place for 30 to 40 minutes.
After the dough has risen, place your pizza stone in the oven and heat to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. (If you don’t have a pizza stone, preheat the oven and use a pizza pan instead.)
Take the risen dough and roll out into a 12 inch pizza crust on a clean, floured countertop or cutting board.
Using your fingers to roll the edge into an outer crust. Make it as thick as you like.
Carefully slide your crust onto a pizza peel or pizza pan. Add toppings – first sauce, then meat and/or veggies, then cheese last. If you have to slide your pizza on to a pizza stone, don’t overload your pizza. The heavier it is, the harder it is to slide.
Carefully slide the pizza onto the heated pizza stone. (Or place your pizza pan in the oven.) Bake your pizza at 425° for about 15-20 minutes or until crust is brown and crisp but before cheese starts to brown too much.
To make pre-cooked party sized pizza crusts:
Preheat the oven and your pizza stone (if using one) to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
Take the risen dough and divide it in six small balls. The balls should be the size of a racquet ball, about what you can hold between the cupped palms of both of your hands.
Roll each ball and roll out using a rolling pin on a clean, floured countertop or wooden cutting board. The thinner, the better. Your premade crusts can be round, rectangular or square – up to you.
Slide the dough on to a pizza peel. Then slide the crusts onto a baking stone. (You can use a cookie sheet if you don’t have a pizza stone).
Bake pizzas on a pizza stone at 425° for about 15-20 minutes until crust is brown and crisp.
Remove from oven and cool on a rack.
Top with your favorite healthy party toppings and serve.
Tips:
If you are cooking up several batches of mini pizzas, make sure that dough does not rise too much on rolled out pizza crusts. If it does, just roll it out a a few times more before putting it in the oven.

If you notice your dough is “bubbling” and puffing up like a giant chapati, score the dough with a sharp knife. Dough (Pâte in French, Pasta in Italian) is a paste made out of the flour of any cereal (grain) or leguminous food, moistened and kneaded but not baked. This step is a precursor to its use in cooking in numerous ways such as making bread, pasta, noodles, pastry, cookies and muffins among other uses. Dough differs from batter in having a lower water content.

Contents [hide]

1 Gluten

2 Kneading

3 Methods or making yeast dough

3.1 Straight Dough Method

3.2 Sponge Method

3.3 Punching Down

3.4 Portioning

3.5 Proofing

4 Types of dough

[edit] Gluten

The elasticity of dough depends on its gluten content. Gluten is a greyish complex of water-insoluble proteins occurring in wheat and other cereals and is composed chiefly of the proteins gliadin and glutenin. The chainlike molecules form an elastic network that traps carbon dioxide from the leavening agent, expanding with it. The gluten content of flour varies from 7% to 15% and is dependant both on variety and on the weather. For bread making, a high gluten content is desirable but for other baked goods, where lightness is a desirable quality, lower gluten doughs are preferred. All-purpose flour attempts to strike a happy medium between the extremes of bread flour and pastry flour through the mixing of different varieties. In some recipes, the gluten content of dough is attenuated through the use of cornstarch or other refined starch products which are gluten free.
To make bread from cereals with low gluten content, some alternative means of providing an elastic structure is necessary. This can be supplied by the protein in eggs or by precooking all or part of the flour to produce a gelatinous mass which can then be leavened and baked afterwards. Alternatively, flour from the low-gluten cereal may be mixed with high gluten wheat flour.

[edit] Kneading
KneadingThis is the process of working a dough to develop the elasticity of the gluten. This can be done by hand, the traditional method, or with an electric mixer equipped with a dough hook. The way ingredients are mixed affects the final product. The dough must be well mixed to combine the ingredients uniformly, with a uniform texture, as well as effectively developing the gluten and distributing the yeast throughout. If this is not done, the texture and shape of the final product will suffer. The dough should be kneaded until it is smooth and moderately elastic. The presence of one or two bubbles beneath the surface of the dough is a sign that the dough is sufficiently well kneaded. Fat and sugar have a tendency to slow the development of gluten, so rich breads may require longer kneading. Over-kneading may result in a sticky dough but this is rarely a problem except with powerful commercial mixers.

[edit] Methods or making yeast dough

Basically, there are two methods for making yeast doughs:
[edit] Straight Dough Method
This method consists of simply combining the ingredients and mixing them. The yeast may or may not first be activated by mixing with sugar and warm water. The temperature of the water should not exceed 136ºF or the yeast may be killed. Once the ingredients are mixed, the dough is kneaded until smooth and elastic. Kneading time depends on the type of dough being made.

[edit] Sponge Method
SpongeThis method has two stages. First the yeast, liquid and about half the flour are mixed to a batter called a sponge. This is left to rise until it becomes foamy and has increased in volume to double or more. In the second stage, the rest of the flour plus any fat, salt and sugar are added and the dough is kneaded and allowed to rise. This gives the bread a lighter texture and a slightly different flavour. This should not be confused with sourdough bread in which a "starter' is used to make the bread and reserved for later use. The sponge method is particularly useful in improving the texture of heavy doughs like rye.
[edit] Punching Down
PortioningAfter the dough has risen, it is sometimes folded and kneaded a second time to redistribute the gas and help relax the gluten more. This is known as punching down the dough.
[edit] Portioning
ProofingThe dough is now ready to be divided into portions. For loaves the dough is either shaped into an oval and laid flat on a baking sheet. Alternatively, a loaf may be baked in a bread pan. If rolls are to be made, the dough is shaped into a log and then pieces are cut off which are then shaped into rounds or ovals. At this stage the dough is rounded by tucking it under itself to produce a nice round surface which helps it to bake and rise evenly.
[edit] Proofing
The final stage before baking dough is proofing. This is the final rising period and is done at a temperature of between 70ºF and 85ºF. This can be done in a proof box in which temperature and humidity are controlled. Proofing is complete when the product has doubled in size and springs back slowly when lightly touched.