The other day I went to PapaJohns and noticed that they had a roller that had spikes on it and they rolled it on their dough to make some impressions in the dough.
Last weekend I decided to take a fork and try it and I made dents all over my dough.
I don't normally make dents, what are the dents supposed to do?
One of my family members theorized that it might let the heat travel up faster and help with the cooking.
I'm under the impression that the dough was softer once cooked, but I don't know if that's psychosomatic or not.
What does making small dent impressions on pizza dough actually do?
Best Answer
Bread dough experiences "oven spring". That is, the water in the dough turns to steam and gives some fast, extra lift when the dough is first placed in a hot oven.
For most breads oven spring is a very good thing. For thick, flat breads like focaccia and pizza it is not good thing. The spring, or any other rising, will make the dough no longer a flat bread.
Putting the dents in flat breads is simply to help keep them flat when they bake. Unlike in pastry dough, where the docking pierces the dough and lets steam escape, the docking in bread dough shouldn't cut through layers but simply leave indentations.
Pizza doesn't always need to be docked because the weight of the toppings is sufficient to keep it flat. I don't dock my pizza dough.
The indentations are also nice because they increase surface area for toasting and hold on to toppings, such as the olive oil on focaccia, but I don't believe that is their primary purpose.