QUESTION: We're making garlic and herb flavored dough for our bread sticks. We are having a regular problem with this
dough as it becomes quite soft and difficult to handle in just a short time after mixing. We've tried using a higher protein flour and using less water in the dough, but nothing seems to really work at correcting the problem.

ANSWER: The problem that you are experiencing results from the fact that garlic has another function besides flavor. That function is one of a reducing agent. Garlic in a dough will act in a very similar manner to other reducing agents (dough relaxers) such as L-cysteine, the active ingredient in PZ-44, which is used to make excessively strong, difficult to shape doughs much more manageable.

There are a couple of things that you can do to lessen the dough softening effect. If you are using a garlic powder, try mixing it with your formula oil or shortening before adding it to the dough. The fat will have an encapsulating affect upon the garlic, which should greatly diminish the dough softening. The other approach is to use a coarse or granular garlic product. The larger particle size will also reduce the softening affect to some extent.

And lastly, if you are into the "high tech" approach, you might want to try combining the addition of 120 to 180 parts per million (ppm) of ascorbic acid with either of the approaches suggested above. The ascorbic acid will exert a strengthening affect upon the dough, which, at the level suggested, should be sufficient to overcome the softening affect of the garlic. If you find that your regular ingredient supplier doesn't carry ascorbic acid, check with a bakery ingredient supplier, as this is a commonly used dough improver for many bakery products.

QUESTION: While attending the Atlantic City Pizza Expo I came across the supplier of Freschetta pizza shells at one of the booths. The Freschetta frozen pizza rises as it bakes. I asked them if they added any chemical leavening to their dough to accomplish this. They said it was a natural process, without any chemical leavening agents.

I have read several labels from pizza to biscuits and found chemical leavening (SALP/sodium aluminum sulfate, baking soda, and baking powder) to be added. I was under the belief that freezing kills the yeast, and destroys its ability to naturally proof the dough, and that I had to add some form of chemical leavening to create a "Bake and Rise" pizza. Could you explain this "natural process"?

ANSWER: There are two accepted methods for producing pizza and other baked products that rise while baking in the oven. One method requires the use of chemical leavening agents such as sodium aluminum sulfate (SALP) and baking soda, or sodium acid pyrophosphate (SAPP) and baking soda, at levels of 4 to 6 ounces per hundred pounds of flour weight. Other leavening acids can also be used, but these seem to be the most common. In this process, the food acid (leavening acid) is the SALP or SAPP. As these acids solubilize during dough mixing they react with the soda to generate some leavening gas, but it is during the early stage of baking, as the internal temperature of the dough approaches 130F, that they generate the most leavening power. This results in the classical rise during the baking process.

The other method is referred to as a pre-proofed, frozen dough. In this method, no chemical leavening is needed. The "natural" process of the yeast is utilized to proof (rise) the dough prior to the freezing process. This establishes a dough matrix containing many small bubbles already expanded by the generation of carbon dioxide resulting from the yeast fermentation. This pre-proofed dough is then rapidly (blast) frozen to stabilize the dough. This combination of pre-proofing and blast freezing results in a dough with excellent rise characteristics in the oven. We are beginning to see this method being used more and more in the production of bread rolls, and pastry products sold through in-store or deli bakeries.

The only real down side to this method is that it requires the use of very specialized equipment for sheeting, forming, and freezing the dough if more than only a week or two of shelf life is to be expected. Another problem with this method that I am beginning to hear more about is the difficulty of forming a raised edge on the dough piece. Since pre-proofed frozen dough is typically produced on a sheet and die cut line, this can be easily accomplished manually, but the trick is in trying to figure out how to do it under large scale, high volume production conditions. As most of the chemically leavened crusts are produced on a hot press line, the raised edge is formed during the pressing operation. I believe this is why you don't see the pronounced raised edge on pre-proofed frozen pizza crusts you typically see on the chemically leavened type of crust.

PMQ

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