So I set out to make pizza dough, with these ingredients:
- 1.25 cups whole wheat flour + 3.75 cups refined flour(5 cups total; around 750g)
- 1 cup water + 1 cup milk
- 1 tsp active dry yeast
- 10 tsp olive oil
- 2.5 tsp salt
- 2.5 tsp sugar
The dough I made from this is yellow/white in color. The strange thing is that despite having 66% hydration ratio, it wasn't sticky when I started kneading it. It wasn't elastic either, so kneading wasn't optional(obviously).
The trouble is, no matter how much I kneaded it, it just didn't seem to "set" into that elastic dough ball that we're after, after normally about 8 minutes? I kneaded for more than 20 minutes and it was still breaking.
I had to literally pound it with my closed fist like a hammer. It wasn't done even after that.
Right now, it's in the fridge, and I'm letting it cold rise for 24/48 hours.
What's the issue here? Why didn't the dough come together even after all that kneading?
Best Answer
Probably a combination of causes. You're using whole wheat flour, which really does not knead like white flour, even used in moderation with other flour: in addition to having less gluten, the shards of bran cut through the dough structure as you knead. Particularly if the "refined flour" (hmm) you were using wasn't high-gluten bread flour, that could leave you with very little cohesion. The olive oil will also interfere with gluten formation, as will the milk to some degree, particularly whole milk.
Now, none of that may actually matter. Pizza doesn't need a gluten matrix for structure in the same way a free-form bread loaf does, and the recipe you've chosen indicates that you're not looking for the classic Neapolitan crust texture anyway. If you're forming the pizza on a pan, you don't need the gluten to pull the crust, and the starch gel that forms during baking will make it hold together just fine as a cooked pizza. Treat it like pie crust, and roll it out instead of pulling it out.
Oh, incidentally, 10 tsp is a real weird measurement. It's just shy of 1/4 cup; use that instead, and give your measuring hand a rest.