Why the Doctor is the Best Dough You Knough
There are three facts in life: Something, something, and if you want great pizza, you have to begin with great dough. Truth! Luckily, you’ve discovered Doctor Dough. We specialize in small batch, hand crafted, New York-style pizza dough made specifically for your regular home kitchen oven. Unlike most other doughs available at your grocery store, we’re not afraid to stretch our gluten and tell you exactly why Doctor Dough has the essential qualities that make an excellent pizza dough.
High Quality Simple Ingredients
Six. That’s it. No more, unless you count time and love (we do!). Doctor Dough is made with only 6 simple ingredients, and you can pronounce each one! The best pizza dough for your home kitchen oven is made with: flour, water, sugar, salt, olive oil, and yeast. That’s it! Let’s discuss...
Flour
There are all sorts of flours for all sorts of pizza styles. Doctor Dough has a very specific style, New York style. One way we achieve that sturdy and tender crust, with a little bit of chew, is by using a bread flour.
Bread flour, compared to All Purpose flour, for example, has a higher protein content. That higher protein content translates to more gluten, which in turn makes for a more sturdy pizza. Doctor Dough takes great care not to build up too much gluten in the best pizza dough for your home. This allows for a tender crust while still providing enough structure to hold all your toppings. The delicate gluten structure also allows the dough to trap all that gas produced by the yeast. When baked in a nuclear hot oven, a puffy, light and airy crust forms, giving you one of those signature wood-fired oven pizzas.
Water
Doctor Dough pizza dough is made with regular water. Our water for our dough begins with the same tap water that is used for regular sinks. We have a separate water line that is connected to a four-stage water filter system. The filters are constantly monitored and changed as needed. That’s it. We do not import our water from the east coast. We don't do anything except run it though a standard filtration system.
Sugar
Our pizza dough is made with regular granulated cane sugar. The amount of sugar used is a small percentage of the dough weight. Doctor Dough uses sugar for two reasons. 1) The sugar helps to feed the yeast. While those little yeasties are perfectly happy to consume the sugars and starches naturally occurring in wheat flour, the sugar gives them a little extra fuel to do their job. 2) The other reason is that sugar encourages browning while your pizza is cooking. That browning is caramelization, which leads to yummy flavors.
Salt
Doctor Dough, like most all other doughs on this planet, requires salt. It’s almost as necessary as water and flour. It serves several functions within the dough that make it more manageable, in addition to providing flavor. We use regular, ordinary salt that is about as exciting as watching dough rise. Which, if you enjoy that, here's a time-lapse of Doctor Dough.
Olive Oil
Olive oil is part of Doctor Dough because it provides a softer baked dough for your home pizza. We do not use weird hydrogenated things or other funky products. Just oil from olives that has been minimally processed.
Yeast
Oh yeastie boys, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways:
Its a large part of the reason why your perfect home pizza is able to form a beautiful puffy crust.
Yeast is responsible for a lot of the flavor in the dough itself.
Yeast is also tasked with helping to build up that important gluten.
These tiny miracles of gas producing awesomeness, when put into a refrigerator for a while, begin to produce amazing flavor compounds. It is because of this extended cold fermentation time that Doctor Dough is able to exhibit sourdough flavors without using a sourdough yeast.
Why not just use sourdough? Standard yeast is more predictable than sourdough starter. This allows Doctor Dough to deliver the perfect home pizza each and every time.
Mixing and Building a Network
It’s true that you can chuck all your ingredients into a stand mixer, hit "go", and sooner or later you will have a dough. That is not how Doctor Dough is made. Part of the way we make the best pizza dough for your home kitchen oven is through a process.
Our ingredients are mixed together in a certain manner. The Doctor is always worried about oxidation of his dough, so the mix time is minimal. The less handling the better. It is over the next few hours, while the dough is fermenting away, we incorporate several folds into the dough. The timing and manner in which these folds are applied are the work of a LOT of research and testing.
Proper Fermentation
This is the process where the yeast consume the sugars within the dough. They expel gas, they multiply, and do the same thing again and again. That’s why your dough rises. This process produces different flavor compounds and helps form gluten. By taking this dough, at the correct time, and moving it into a refrigerator, Doctor Dough is able to force the yeast to produce flavor compounds in different quantities.
The cold climate naturally causes the yeast to produce less of one acid and more of another. This forced imbalance, if done for the correct amount of time, can create sourdough-like flavors in a standard dough. Doctor Dough is all about packing as much natural flavor into the best pizza dough as we can!
Shaping and Handling the Dough
After the dough has had a nice long proof in the refrigerator, it’s time to portion it into individual balls. Doctor Dough takes great care when dividing and shaping our dough. We aim for an evenly round ball with a smooth surface, while trying not to expel too much gas from the dough. We take care to not over-tighten the gluten structure so that Doctor Dough is less elastic (springs back), and more extensible (stretches without tearing and holds its shape).
The Actual Bake
Once you have your home kitchen oven setup, it’s time to see how easy it is to make the perfect pizza at home.
Makin’ It
Get Out: Remove the dough from the freezer 4 – 5 hours or from the refrigerator 2 -3 hours before it’s time to start making pizza.
Get Hot: About an hour before it’s pizza making time, turn on your oven to its hottest setting with the pizza stone INSIDE.
Get Ready: Setup your pizza making area with everything ready to go, including your tools and toppings.
Get it Done: After your oven has preheated and your area is setup, make your pizza a reality. Shape it, top it and get it ready for launch onto that nuclear hot pizza stone.
Bakin’ It: Take your pizza peel with your raw masterpiece on top over to the oven.
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