QUESTION: I am fairly new to the pizza industry, and I have been told that cornmeal is occasionally used on the bottom of some pizza crusts, but not on the bottom of others. Can you explain why?

ANSWER: Corn meal has been traditionally used on pizza crust as a slip, or release agent to allow the formed dough piece (crust) to be easily slid from the pizza or oven peel,onto the deck of the oven for baking. However, with the ever-increasing popularity of the new, conveyorized ovens, the use of corn meal is becoming less and less. The main exception to this is where wood fired ovens are used.

Wood fired ovens are essentially a look back in time. They make pizzas the old fashioned way, and they require that the pizzas be peeled in the oven, hence the need for corn meal. There are also a number of pizza bakers who still use the traditional deck ovens to bake their waves. While not everybody uses corn meal in combination with a deck oven, some operators choose to bake their pizza on a screen, pan, or even on a special baking paper, the use of corn meal still has a strong following among users of deck ovens.

When cornmeal is used, a good deal of it will be lost in the oven, where it chars, and must be regularly removed from the interior of the oven. Through the use of an oven rake (to loosen adhering particles from the deck surface) or an oven groom, which is used to sweep the residue cornmeal from the oven deck surface. If the cornmeal isn't removed from the oven in a timely manner, there exists a possibility that it might ignite and create a fire hazard.

Because of this potential fire hazard, the use of cornmeal has been primarily at the pizzeria level. This brings us to one of the more current reasons for using cornmeal. That is to produce a pizza crust on a high speed, automated, processing line, which possesses at least one of the dominant stereotypical characteristics of a pizzeria pizza.

We are finding a growing use of cornmeal in some of the most current offerings from the wholesale pizza industry. In addition to providing the appearances of a pizzeria pizza, the cornmeal also imparts its own unique flavor, even when charred.

So, how does the wholesale pizza industry get all of that cornmeal through their ovens without having it get all over the manufacturers simply put the cornmeal into their dough, rather than onto it. This way it can't fall off of the crust and create a problem for them. But at the same time, it isn't as visual, so much of the perception is lost.

Then we have the manufacturer who does put the cornmeal onto the crust bottom where it really needs to be. Their way of coping with problem is simple. They manufacture a crust that is baked at home, either as a take-and-bake, or as an oven rising frozen pizza. In both cases the cornmeal serves its purpose very well, and at the same time does not present a significant problem to the consumer's home oven is easily cleaned out with the wipe of a damp towel.

QUESTION: Why is it that pizza doughs are usually under mixed, as compared to bread doughs which are mixed to achieve a high level of gluten development?

ANSWER: The mixing of a dough is a means of developing the gluten forming proteins, present in the wheat flour, into the somewhat sticky, elastic material that we call "gluten". As the gluten is developed, it first becomes somewhat sticky, then it begins to lose its stickiness, and it becomes more elastic in nature. It is at this stage of gluten development that the dough can be stretched between the fingers to form a thin film. It is also at this stage of development that the dough is more resistant to any change in its shape. This is due to the elastic character of the gluten. If we were to mix a pizza dough to this stage, it would tend to be rather difficult to form the dough to the desired shape, as the dough would want to snap back to its original shape (possibly a dough ball?) Does this sound familiar? A dough that shrinks in size, or is difficult to form? Many of us have experienced this problem more time than we care to admit I am sure.

But if we stop mixing before that gluten is developed to the point of being elastic, the dough will be much less elastic and easier to form. The only draw back to this is that the crumb structure will not be as fine and cake like. Hey, who wants their pizza crust to have a cake like appearance any ways? That open, crumb structure gives our crust that handmade and pizzeria appearance that we so dearly want.

So what happens if you were to continue mixing the dough beyond the elastic stage? In this case, the dough now begins to loose its elasticity, and is more easily stretched, to formed to shape. However, the dough is also softer, and generally a bit more sticky, or tacky, making it more difficult to handle without the use of dusting flour. This isn't a problem in bread production, since dusting flour is a common part of the make up of bread. Additionally, the bread dough will be sheeted to size, then moulded to shape, and then possibly placed into a pan for shape retention until the dough can be proofed and baked.

In pizza production, the dusting flour may be objectionable due to its appearance on the crust surface, and the soft dough characteristic might create problems with handling the formed crusts while trying to retain their round shape.

Just remember to keep your pizza doughs on the under mixed side, and you shouldn't have any problems with dough forming.