Chicago Deep Dish Dough 2

By RoketJSquerl

The amount of kneading required for a typical pizza dough is way too much kneading for deep dish. If you over-knead deep dish dough, you can end up with a much more bready or chewy result, which can also give you a thicker crust as a result. Large amounts of stretchy gluten may be great for bread or NY style pizza, but not so much for deep dish. You should not be mixing/kneading for more than 2 minutes total, just long enough to work the dough into a ball.

"Best" is always relative. Reflecting my most current preference, here's a recipe that I used recently for a 14" diameter straight-sided pan that is 2" deep, the dough going up the side 1.5", a TF of .125 and a 1.5% bowl residue:

Ingredients

• Flour (100%): 436.26 g | 15.39 oz
• Water (45%): 196.32 g | 6.92 oz
• ADY (.75%): 3.27 g | 0.12 oz |.87 tsp
• Salt (1%): 4.36 g | 0.78 tsp
• Olive Oil (6%): 26.18 g | 0.92 oz | 5.82 tsp | 1.94 tbsp
• Corn Oil (12%): 52.35 g | 1.85 oz | 11.63 tsp | 3.88 tbsp
• Butter/Margarine (6%): 26.18 g | 0.92 oz | 5.53 tsp | 1.84 tbsp
• Sugar (1.5%): 6.54 g | 0.23 oz | 1.64 tsp
• Total (172.25%): 751.45 g | 26.51 oz | 1.66 lbs | TF = 0.126875
• The Flour Blend can be (1) all KAAP flour, or (2) 80% KAAP (349 g/12.3 oz.) and 20 % semolina (87.25 g/3 oz.)
• Note: 1/2 tsp of Baker's NFDM was added, but is optional (used for color and tender crust affect)

Details

Adapted from pizzamaking.com

Preparation

Step 1

While I generally use King Arthur AP flour, that's just a personal choice. I generally bake on a low rack for 35 to 45 minutes at around 450 degrees F, but that depends on the characteristics of one's oven. The butter component can either be melted and cooled or very soft and mixed in. And of course avoid overworking the dough. Like with many things, it's worth experimenting with the various ingredients to see what you like.

So for me, my optimum dough is:
1) combine ingredients into a smooth dough ball with minimal kneading.
2) rise for 1-2 hours in a warm place
3) stick in a ziploc overnight in the fridge
4) take bag of dough out of fridge and let it come to room temp on the counter (1-2 hours) before pressing into pan.