Pizza #4: 72H Cold Ferment - Wheat crust with pulled chicken onions olives and jalapenos
72H Cold Ferment Pizza Results
Made my first 72 hour cold ferment pizza tonight and I was very happy with the results. The extra 24 hours compared to my last 48 hour cold ferment produced a much nicer and developed crust that made for a wonder pizza experience. The 48h cold ferment crust was absolutely delicious with a very strong and robust taste. I don't know why exactly but the 72 hour cold ferment didn't have the same amazing taste as the 48 hour one.
Comparison
If I had to compare the two though, the 72 hour would be the winner for one reason, because the crust developed much better in terms of it's shape and depth. While the my other attempts still had a wonderful rise and cooking development, this 72 hour crust really took the cake with a really nice development to the actual body of the pizza instead of just the crust portion. In my previous pizzas the crust would develop well while the body stayed thin and didn't get too thick. A thin body is fine of course but for me personally, I prefer a little more depth to my pizza.
The pizza
Today's pizza used the same wheat recipe from my last pizza blog which I'll link below. Unlike my last pizza which I tailored for my girlfriend, this pizza was all about me. I slow cooked 2 chicken breasts in my slow cooker until they easily teared apart. I accidently cooked them a little too long though and had to re-hydrate the pulled chicken afterwards by mixing in some hotsauce, white vinegar, soy sauce and bbq sauce (I just used the same wet ingredients I originally used to slow cook the chicken).
I used a can of pizza sauce from my local import store to sauce the pizza. In my previous 3 pizzas I used a combination of cheddar and motz cheeses but this time I simply used mozzarella. I thinly cut some red onions to top it (I love yellow onions the most but they are very seasonal here). I spread some of the pulled chicken on it as well as green olives and jalapenos and put it into the oven for the final cook.
In this picture you can see just how well the crust rose and see that it has such a wonderful depth to the pizza that makes for a great and filling dinner. Every bite feels like you're getting a lot of pizza and it's superbly chewy throughout the whole pizza due to the addition of this wonderful whole wheat flour.
The combination of toppings was really good and using so much mozzarella cheese gave me an amazing cheesy pizza. No flavor was too strong or overpowering and they all worked together to make a very good pizza. I really love the wheat crust and it might be my new go to pizza crust because of it's amazing flavor and chewiness that it brings. However, I just got some 00'' flour and have already prepped new dough balls for an experiment with this type of flour! I'm really excited to see how this turns out because 00'' flour is made specifically for pizza and it's used by almost every respectable pizza establishment. It creates the best pizza doughs and can't wait to see how it'll turn out with my pizza dough recipe!
Awesome pizza. I can almost taste the crust. This is mouth watering.
You are part of my post "Food By Red Fish". Check it out.
Thanks! This pizza crust turned out really amazing and I'm so happy with the results of my wheat crust. I'v saved my wheat recipe and i'm currently working on a new one with 00 flour now.
Sounds good. I also tried the 00 flour some years back for my pizza. I did not had the feeling that the difference was that much. I know Italians swear on this one. :-)
You're right! I just made a couple 00 pizzas the last couple days and I didn't notice much of any difference from when I used normal bread flour. I think I need a better oven to measure the effects of 00 flour, mine is just a small one that only reaches 230C and can't get anywhere close to the level of a professional pizza oven. I'v recently been considering upgrading to a professional pizza oven but it's quite a big purchase when I'm not sure how long I'll be living in China and frequently have to move apartments.
I also tried several years baking pizza at home. I tried low and very high temperatures. At the end, I am using now 220°C. This seems to be an ideal temperature. I like my pizza not that crispy. For me the dough is perfect. I use just top and bottom heat, no air circulation.
Looks delicious! I love handmade pizza. It always taste the best.
Thanks! It's really hard to get a good pizza near where I live. The Chinese pizzas are really lacking in knowledge of pizza and you get very generic store bought crusts often times using no pizza sauce or even ketchup. They use a lot of ingredients i'm not a fan of like sweet mayo, durian, tons of fruits, really cheap fake ham, fake bacon, hotdogs, green peas and corn (I love both these but just not so much on pizza).
There are one or two western restaurants near me that make pizza but they still aren't quite like a really nice pizza place back home and they're often very very expensive. I had amazing pizza in hong kong but my city in China just lacks that really amazing quality and variety. I'v always loved making pizzas anyway, it's just been a struggle here due to the difficulty of buying quality ingredients and not owning a really good oven. I'm really happy with this pizza though, it turned out really tasty!
Wow, those are odd ingredients for pizza. I agree, I probably wouldn't like those pizzas at all. And I really love pizza. I love food altogether, but pizza is up there on the list. I'm sure that would be hard for me because I would crave pizza. I asked before, but I don't know if you missed my comment, or if you do not want to answer. Sorry if I seem intrusive, but I am still curious to where you are originally from? If you don't want to share on here, that is okay too.
Sorry I must have just missed the comment. I'm from Maryland USA haha. I'v had some odd chinese pizzas that I end up liking but there's a lot of very meh pizzas, not something I really like but also not something I really dislike. Durian pizza though is the bane of my existence here in china lol, i really don't like durian.
Awesome! I thought you were from the US. I could tell by your writing. A lot of people on here know English, but I feel like I can tell when someone is from the US by their writing style most of the time. Some of the toppings you mentioned sounded gross.