I’m trying out a new recipe … Piadine Dough, from The Tra Vigne Cookbook by Michael Chiarello (see: http://www.napastyle.com/recipe/recipe.jsp?productId=2342)
In the book, he writes, “Perhaps you think that making dough is a bother. But once you work with this dough, you will want to do it again. It is one of those textures that begs to be touched, caressed. It feels as smooth and silky as a baby’s bottom.” Well, I don’t know much about baby’s bottoms, but this dough does have an exquisite feel that does make me long for my bread baking days.
Of course, I did make a few minor adjustments to the recipe.
2 1/4 teaspoons rapid rise yeast (because that’s what I had access to)
1/2 cup water
About 3 cups bread flour + 1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup water
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Piadine Dough, fresh from the mixer
Measure out all of your ingredients. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the 1/2 cup water, let it soften a moment, then stir to combine a bit. Add about 1/2 cup flour and stir to make a smooth sponge. Pour this mixture into your mixer bowl, cover with a towel, and set to proof about 20 minutes. You want to do this to make sure your yeast is viable, and it also gives it a little head start.
When the yeast has proofed, pour in the 1 cup of water, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and then add about 3 cups of the flour. I like to start mixing the flour in before adding the salt. When the dough starts to come together a bit, then I add the salt. It’s usually OK to just stir the salt into the flour, also, but I prefer to not do this because I never know if I’ll have to use all of the flour or not. I tend to like a wet dough, so I typically have some flour leftover from the recipe. That’s the main reason I don’t just stir the salt into the flour. After adding the salt and mixing on low speed for a few minutes, feel the dough and add up to about 1/2 cup of flour until you reach the desired consistency. Do this at low speed, then increase the speed to medium and let the dough knead about 2 minutes. Again, you’ll know by the feel. I often like to finish the dough with a brief (a minute, give or take) kneading at high speed in my KitchenAid mixer.
Gently shaped into dough balls
At this point, remove the dough from the bowl and place on a floured board for final shaping. This dough will be soft, so be sure to give your board a pretty good dusting of flour, but not too much. It’s tempting to use lots of flour at this stage, but try to avoid that temptation. Let the dough rest just a moment, then gently roll into a ball. Place the dough balls into bowls coated with olive oil, cover with plastic, and place in the refrigerator to rise slowly.
When the dough has doubled in size, you’ll want to “punch it down. This does NOT mean smash the dough; a dough like this needs to be handled very gently. You just want to deflate it, gently push out the gasses that have built up. Here is a good link to check out: http://www.redstaryeast.com/lessons-yeast-baking/baking-steps-guide/punching-down-shaping
We’re heading off to the Farmers’ Market to pick up some veggies to top our pizza with tonight.
A few important notes:
- If you haven’t made dough before, it might take a few practice batches to know what to feel for. For me, it was like learning to ride a bike. Once you get it, you’ve got it. But, it can take some time. (I don’t even want to tell you how long I had to use training wheels when I was a kid learning to ride a bike. My poor father. It took the patience of a saint to teach me to ride a bike. But, once I got it, you could hardly get me off the bike.) Be patient with yourself, be patient with the dough. You are creating a living, breathing thing here. Some batches will come out great, some will be disappointing. You just have to love the dough for what it is and understand that some batches just will not come out the way you want them to.
- In the refrigerator, this rise will take a few hours … I’ll have a better idea later this morning how quickly this dough will rise. A softer (looser) dough like this will rise more quickly than a drier (tighter) dough.
- I used cool room temperature filtered water. In general, it’s a good idea to use either filtered or bottled water for bread. Water straight from the tap can contain a lot of chlorine, which can adversely effect the yeast. I tend to use cooler water in my dough because I like a slower rise, which allows the dough to develop more depth of flavor and a silkier consistency.
- I typically use up to about 25% whole wheat flour, but (gasp!) I was out of whole wheat flour this morning. I’ll let you in on a little baker’s secret, too. If you can add a very small amount of rye flour (up to 2% by weight), this will add a really nice flavor and silky feel to the dough.
Dough is in the refrigerator, the kitchen is cleaned up, now we’re off to the Farmers’ Market!
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