Extra pizza dough

[james]

One more thing.

I made a lot of extra pizza dough yesterday, and ended up with seven extra dough balls -- enough for at least 2 (maybe three) focaccia for dinner over the next few days. I'm storing the dough in the refrigerator, and going to bring it out as I need it.

I'm thinking of doing this every time we make pizza.

Do other folks do that?
James

[Chef]

Re: Extra pizza dough

James:

We do it all the time. We have a two 9 x 16 baking pans that came with plastic lids, Chef Phil keeps 6 dough balls in each pan. We keep the dough ready to go in the fridge and pull it out about 30 mins before we use it. The most we have pushed it the dough was 5 days old, but I think we could have gone to the 7 day mark. Here in the northeast it is not uncommon to find fresh dough in the supermarket who know how old that is by the time it is before come home (and its nasty!!!).

Tonight we had 3 dough balls left over and he made rolls, they came out fine.

Malinda

[Frances]

Re: Extra pizza dough

I've taken to making Calzone with all the leftovers, baking them in the cooling oven and reheating them (or it) a couple of days later. Its got so that we get really upset if there aren't any leftovers...

[james]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Can you put a Calzone in your kid's school lunch to eat cold?
James

[Frances]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Well you could, except Swiss kids come home for lunch (and Swiss moms are expected to stay home to cook said lunch).

And anyway my kids won't touch most of the things I like best in Calzone: salami, mushrooms, broccoli, sweet corn, onion rings, leek (as well as ham, tomatoes, parmesan, mozzarella) ... mmmm, getting hungry just thinking about it!

But appart from that I think it'd be great as a cold lunch. I'd eat it!

[Dutchoven]

Re: Extra pizza dough

James
Cold calzone in a lunch!!! I would have loved that! Definitely! We use leftover dough as preferment for bread baking...easy easy as it is already scaled.

Frances
You made me hungry too! Leeks and corn in a calzone...great idea...lets add some potatoes and it would be like soup in a bread bowl...only better!!!
Best
Dutch

[james]

Re: Extra pizza dough

You made me hungry too! Leeks and corn in a calzone...great idea...lets add some potatoes and it would be like soup in a bread bowl...only better!!!
Best
Dutch

That reminds me. I had a great Cornish Pasty in Oxford over summer vacation -- award-winning, there was a line, and they were excellent. I had the veggie.
James

[asudavew]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Do other folks do that?
James

I let it set in the fridge until it blows!

hahah

I guess the next one I should use for a sour dough starter......

[Chef]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Another good use for leftover pizza dough is "pizza fritta" or "dough boys". Just take the dough stretch it a bit so it is about the size of your hand and about 1/4 to 1/2 inch tick; fry it either in a deep fryer or a deep fry pan with an inch or two of oil, fry on both sides till golden brown. Take out of the oil and drain on a few sheets of paper towel, while still hot sprinkle a good amount of plain white sugar. Yumo!

[Modthyrth]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Oh man, I hadn't even considered making pasties! That might win over my Father in law (from the UP). Right now he just thinks I'm loony.

[rberg02]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Use the extra pizza dough to make better tasting pizza dough. Here's what I do. I prefer to refrigerate my pizza dough for a minimum of two to three days before making pizza because I think the dough acquires a better flavor as it matures. I stretch and fold the dough once a day for the first two days. To speed this maturation up a bit, I have begun adding approximately 8 ounces of leftover dough from the previous batch of pizza dough, cut up into pieces, to a new two pound batch of dough. The dough stays good for a surprisingly long time in the fridge - up to 5 to 7 days in my experience.

Extra frozen extra pizza dough can also be used to add flavor to new dough. My experience with frozen dough it that it doesn't puff up as nicely around the rim as dough that hasn't been frozen, and I think this is a better use for it.
Ron

[Breven]

Re: Extra pizza dough

THis is all great advice...

But most of all, I'm sitting here thinking how great it would have been to grow up in Switzerland! Home for lunch, mom always there...sounds good to me.

[Frances]

Re: Extra pizza dough

Sure... unless you're the Mom!

[sarah h]

Re: Extra pizza dough

I had two extra pizza dough balls I forgot in the fridge from last weekend and remembered them last night just before dinner. I pushed, pulled and stretched them into roughly rectangular shapes about a centimeter thick (that's between a quarter- and a half-inch), slathered them with olive oil, added some chopped rosemary and coarse sea salt and - since the oven was not in use - cooked them for about 15 minutes (maybe?) on the BBQ, flipping them once.
They were delicious and disappeared fast!