Try Something New: Week Eight

I was really looking forward to this weeks new recipe.
I found a recipe for pizza crust by pizza maestro Tony Gemignani.
I really don't know that much about the man, but my mother told me about his book, The Pizza Bible.

I was so excited to find a recipe for his master dough with standard measurements instead of metric weights. 

This recipe is kind of complicated, requiring a couple days of preparation. It requires a "poolish," a mixture of flour, water, and yeast which is a starter of sorts. It also calls for a kind of specialty ingredient, diastatic malt, which is a dough conditioner. 

I followed the recipe the best I could. I mixed everything by hand instead of using a stand mixer. I do not have a baking stone and had to skip the pizza peel, also. I did not preheat the oven at 500* F. for an hour because pizza is not worth that much fuel to me, (We have a gas oven.), plus it is 80* here without air conditioning. One other big change I made was using whole wheat flour. That was probably a bad choice considering how the crust turned out. :/

I was hoping that even though I did not follow the recipe exactly I would still be delighted with the results. I did the steps that I thought were a little frivolous, like using such and such amount of warm water and such and such amount of ice cold water, wisking for 30 seconds, rolling the dough out to 15 inches and then cutting off an inch all the way around, ect...

I am not a pizza connoisseur by any means. I don't know the difference between New York Style and Chicago Style pizza. I just know what I like and I really, really like the way pizza crusts like Papa John's are full of big air pockets and are so chewy, and fluffy, and flavorful. I have been wanting to make a pizza crust like that for years. I have tried a handful of recipes. I have enjoyed many, but none were quite like that perfect crust that I desired.

I was sorely, sorely disappointed. :(
I didn't even take a picture of my pathetic little crusts.
They were flat as pancakes.
Very dense.
Hard.

I am not chalking this up to a flawed recipe. This is definitely a case of not following the instructions.
Maybe I will try again someday.

I can say that even in it's pitiful state my crust was very tasty. It had a complex flavor with lots of depth. Almost like an aged cheese. I am sure using the poolish and having such a long proofing time allowed the flavors to develop very well.

That wraps up this weeks new recipe.
 I hope you all have a safe and enjoyable weekend! :)