Hi Everyone..
There's a great restaurant that I visit, which makes the best mushroom pizza. So good in fact, we often go because of it. I asked once what the flour mixture was given the texture and colour and was told it was 1/2 locally milled bread flour and 1/2 semolina flour. So I gave it a go this weekend.
Topping: turned out very well. The taste truly is remarkable. It's a combination of marscarpone and cambozola cheese with sauteed mushrooms. Once the dough was ready, I smeared a thin layer of marsarpone over the dough with the back of a spoon, then I crumbled some cambozola cheese on top. I also sauteed some chopped king oyster mushrooms in olive oil, let them cool and placed them on the pizza after the cheese. As a last step I sprinkled some truffle salt I had on hand and put it into the oven. The topping was incredible!
The dough itself, ok but not so incredible. I've never used semolina flour before and it was truthfully an after thought. I had mix 125g of unbleached bread flour and 125g of water with a small pinch of yeast on Friday night. By late Saturday morning, lots of bubbles and fully matured. I added 125g semolina flour and about 62.5g water, and about 5 grams of salt. Gave it a good mix and let it rest as it was a bit of a blob. The semolina flour didn't seem to absorb water too well. Over the next two hours I gave it about 4 stretch and folds. It started coming together but clearly felt entirely different given the semolina. I left it until about 6pm and then I rolled it into a ball, oiled it and placed it in the fridge covered. By 6pm it hadn't doubled really.. or maybe just.. This morning, Sunday, I shaped it into a pizza. It was incredibly slack - very easy to extent into a pizza round.
The pizza really didn't rise well. The dough's taste was fine. But it was dense - both the crust and the main part of the pizza. The crust rose a bit - but the main body of the pizza really didn't, so it baked but was a bit dense.
So why do you think it didn't work out? Thoughts? Given I did this in two steps, and had a bubbly dough by Satuday morning I would think there was lots of yeast in the dough. But maybe it has to do with how semolina flour is used? Thanks in advance! bread1965!
I'm wondering if you used durum semolina, which is sort of a fine grainy texture, or the flour that is made from grinding durum wheat into powder (rather than the gritty semolina). They behave quite differently in dough. Semolina is fairly easy to find but the durum flour is a bit more elusive.
LL - you had me doubting myself, so I checked the bag. It's Red Mill Semolina Flour.. It is hard to find, that's why I haven't tried this recipe before now. I bought it when I came across it the other day at a health food store..
Looking at the Bob's Red Mill site and reading the print on the front of their bag of "Semolina Flour", it says that it is ground to semolina's traditional sandy texture. Durum flour (as opposed to semolina) is ground to a soft, fluffy 'flour' texture from the same durum wheat. My American's Test Kitchen book "Bread Illustrated" has recipes using both and cautions that you can't substitute one for the other. So I guess it depends which was used for the original pizza dough recipe! Personally, I haven't been able to find durum flour and we have a pretty good selection of flours, including Bob's, here in Victoria.
Hodgson's Mill makes a fine milled semolina flour. It can be found on Amazon if your larger grocery stores don't stock it.
Thanks PG - will do. But do you think that the problem I had relates to how fine the grind of the semolina is/was?
i bought semolina today at my local Bulk Barn In Winnipeg. Give them a try.
will get some there.. thanks!
Do they mean Semolina? Fine Semolina? Or re milled Semolina?
It will make a difference.
All comes from Durum wheat. Durum is a hard wheat and it produces more of a grit like "flour". When it is grit like it is called Semolina. When it is re-milled it is called Durum Flour. One can get different grinds for Semolina too. So you see there is a lot of confusion and crossovers when someone says "Semolina Flour". They've basically fused Semolina and Durum Flour. So which one do they mean?
The finer it is the better it is for a dough. So Durum flour is best but if you can't find that then going for a fine Semolina is the next best thing. You can get quite close to the real thing. Durum flour absorbs more water than Semolina. So if you have to substitute then watch the hydration.
"Durum Flour" aka "Re-milled Semolina" aka "Semola Rimacinata" https://www.amazon.com/Caputo-Semola-Grano-Rimaninata-Semolina/dp/B008ZGMP2M/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1479735869&sr=8-1&keywords=semola%2Brimacinata&th=1
Turns out you were right.. it's durham wheat ground to semolina's traditional sandy texture - or so the package describes. I still think the issue wasn't the grind on the pizza but the rise. Still makes no sense.. I think I'll give it a try and muck around with percentages.. thank you for the reply!
Durum wheat is low in gluten..perhaps adding some vital wheat gluten, or using higher protein flour?