Paddle Pizza (Franko61's recipe)

« Older Newer »

Elpado

Posted on 8/10/2017, 17:40

Advanced Member

Group: Member

Posts: 2,846

Location: Monaco di Baviera

Status: Offline

oRG9b8pl

Paddle Pizza (Franko61's recipe)

Introduction

Today we are going to present a really famous pizza on our forum. First of all, let me spend few words on the name of this type of pizza. In Italian we call it “Pizza alla pala” or also only “Pala”. “Pala” is the tool used by the “Pizzaiolo” (pizza chef) to introduce the pizza into the oven. In English it is called “Paddle”. Usually this type of pizza requires a peculiar type of paddle, because it is not the typical round/square paddle, but it has more like a rectangular shape with one of the side longer than the other one. This type of tool is used because in our paddle pizza we want a long rectangular shape. Basically a wooden board is normally more than enough and it doesn’t even need a proper handle. Because of the need of this particular type of paddle, this pizza is called “Paddle pizza”! Here a picture of a typical paddle for this type of pizza (you can find in our store HERE:

tramontana-500x500

Characteristics

This pizza is very soft in the inside, but the top and bottom sides are thin, well cooked and crunchy layers. This is a very important characteristic to have a contrast between softness of the inside and crunchiness of the outer layers.

It has an intense fragrance, thanks to the long fermentation and it is very tasty with only olive oil and coarse salt, added just before putting it into the oven.

NOTE: Any Pizza that don’t have a tomato sauce as a topping it is called “white pizza”.

One way to enrich the flavours of our white pizza is the addition of herbs like rosemary, thyme, sage etc., but also freshly ground pepper.

Of course, you can use any topping like cheeses, onions or other vegetables. The structure is strong enough to hold heavy toppings without collapsing.

What you will need

1) A mixing bowl
2) A pizza scraper
3) A rectangular lunchbox (about 1/1.5 L volume)
4) The paddle described above
5) Dusting flour

Quick note about the dusting flour: the best flour in this case would be a “Semola rimacinata” flour, which is a fine hard wheat flour (“durum wheat”). If you don’t find it, no problem you can use a normal white plain flour.

Oven

The best oven for this pizza would be, of course, a stone oven. Other options are semi-professional electric oven (like this one). You can also use the classic domestic oven with a pizza stone. The baking time will be longer, but the result will not suffer too much.

Dough characteristics

This is a high hydration dough (80% of the flour weight is water) and we are going to use the so-called “no-knead” technique. For detail about this technique check out this thread

We will be using strong flours (W index 240-260, or protein content 12.0-12.5%). You can use either fresh or dry active yeast or your sourdough starter.

Total fermentation/rising time is 24 hours at about 16°C. For higher temperature reduce the yeast amount.

Ingredients

For one paddle pizza with 30x40 cm dimensions (classic domestic oven size).

Water 200 grams
Flour 200 grams
Fresh compressed yeast 2 grams (or 50 grams sourdough starter)
Salt 7 grams
Melted lard 7 grams

NOTE: For bigger quantities the yeast will have to be reduced accordingly. For one litre water, for example, use 6 – 8 grams of yeast.

Procedure

First day – 7 pm

Add water and yeast into the mixing bowl. Dissolve the yeast. We now add one third of the flour and we stir to help water adsorption. When we have a smooth cream consistency we add salt and melted lard. We slowly add the remaining flour and we keep mixing until all the water is adsorbed.

Wait 2 hours.

9 pm

Dust your working table with a little bit of dusting flour. Place your dough onto the table. The dough is now rough, sticky and almost impossible to knead. That is why we are going to use only folds with the help of our pizza scraper. Perform one set of folds. Cover the dough and wait 15 minutes.

9.15 pm and 9.30 pm

Second and third rounds of folds, with 15 minutes waiting time in between.

The dough should now look with a good gluten strength, smooth and compact. Place the dough back into a container and cover it with a lid or cling film. Leave it a room temperature for about 17 hours.

Second day – 3 pm

Shaping

Divide the dough into about 450 grams portions. Perform one round of folds on each portion and place the dough back into the container. Do not skip this step. It provides the proper amount of strength that is fundamental for a proper rising when baking.

8 pm

Cover your working table with a lot of dusting flour. It is very important that the dough don’t stick to the surface. Place your dough on the table and dust heavily the top of the dough. Gently open up the dough with your fingertips. Shape into a flat rectangle. Check out the video below for this step.

NOTE: This step is really important, and requires lots of experience! This is the perfect excuse to make more pizzas

Place your dough on the pizza paddle, put your toppings and bake it!

Oven should be at 300 °C both top and bottom. If your oven don’t reach 300 °C, don’t worry, just use the maximum temperature allowed by your oven. Remember that you will have to adjust baking time according to the temperature reached by your oven. Also, if you can, turn off convection.

Baking time should be in between 3 and 7 minutes, depending on the oven used.

Here some videos: