Dough question

[Gobear]

I'm having an issue with my dough, even after it has risen twice I still find that it doesn't hold its shape when stretched to form the pizza..it seems to srink... Duh Any help would be greatly apprecited

Cheers Gobear

[heliman]

Too much water perhaps?

[SableSprings]

Remember that the more dough is worked, the more the gluten is strengthened...and gluten is the main reason any dough will stretch out and then return to the original size (the rubber effect). In order to make the dough more workable so it will stretch out (and stay out ), let it rest 20-30 minutes before trying shape it. I've even seen people work the dough too much trying to get the "perfect" round shape...and had them either accept the "odd" shape they had or let the dough rest again before continuing. Most breads are allowed to rest for this amount of time after being sized and before the final shaping for this reason, the dough needs to "relax" the gluten sheets to retain the new shape.

Putting sized balls of dough into the refrigerator overnight (covered and up to a couple days) helps keep the dough from becoming tougher while the flavor develops further. Normally, I take my dough balls out about an hour before a pizza run to let them warm up a bit and then stretch them out, load 'em up, and throw them in the oven. Hope that helps...also, I currently use General Mills, Better for Bread flour (marketed as Golden Harvest for 50 lb sacks) since I thought the higher gluten bread flours often produced pizza crusts that were too tough. So, you might try a different flour for your pizza dough as well...how about a pizza "crust" tasting party? I did this for All-Trumps, Better for Bread, and Bob's Red Mill bread flours...decided the GM Better for Bread was the best for my taste buds.

[Tim_FB]

I'm having an issue with my dough, even after it has risen twice I still find that it doesn't hold its shape when stretched to form the pizza..it seems to srink... Duh Any help would be greatly apprecited

Cheers Gobear

Two suggested resources.

Pizza Quest with Peter Reinhart. He has recipes, webisodes and a tone of content. Peter is an acclaimed author and culinary professor.

Another recommendation is Tony's Gemignani's book "The Pizza Bible." Easily available on Amazon.com.

Tim