Why my pizza dough turned out so filling and heavy on the stomach?

Question

This is the recipe:

• 1 kg pizza flour
• 680 gr water
• 4 teaspoons dry yeast
• 12 tablespoons olive oil (and even more for handling the sticky dough)
• 2 tablespoons salt & 2 teaspoons sugar
• kneaded for 15 minutes on a stand mixer with a dough hook , than rest for 3 hours.

The pizza turned out beautiful and delicious with a lot of air pockets in the crust, but was just awful to digest, everyone in my family said that, so its not a personal problem. what should i change to make it more lightweight? Maybe its the ridiculous amount of olive oil that i used? Thank you ;)

Answer 1

Both the amount of salt and the amount of olive oil in that recipe are on the very high side for a standard pizza dough recipe, so if you found it disagreeable I'd suggest reducing both. With that amount of olive oil, I'd say that you were making more of a focaccia than a pizza dough (although focaccia with pizza toppings is generally quite tasty).

Answer 2

If you have the time and can plan ahead, I've found that leaving pizza dough to ferment in the fridge overnight, around 12 hours or more, makes for a more pleasant and tastier pizza. You may have to cut down on the yeast a little so it doesn't over prove.

Some observations: I'm not sure why you are adding sugar. I really don't think pizza dough needs sugar. Also the olive oil does seem to be excessive. Personally I only use a little to oil to grease the bowl so I can get it out of the bowl easily. A little olive oil in your dough mix can help if you are cooking pizza in a home oven, but I wouldn't go crazy with it. It can help retain a little moisture as you generally need to cook a pizza longer in a home oven (at a lower temperature) than a traditional pizza oven which is much hotter.

If you can, perhaps try to find a traditional Italian pizza dough recipe from a real Italian. They are definitely the experts when it comes to pizza. If you need to search on youtube "pizza fatta in casa" should get you some authentic recipes.

Answer 3

A 2019 study says the sourdough bread digestion is faster when long-time fermented:

First, we showed a prolonged transit time for the baker’s yeast bread and a faster passage of sourdough breads, especially when made with traditional and long-time fermentation.

Unfortunately, only 3 fermentations have been studied:

1. Baker's yeast only dough: 2 hours of fermentation at 30°C

2. 20% of sourdough (4 hours fermented) + 1.5% baker's yeast: 1.5 hours of fermentation at 30°C

3. 20% of sourdough (24 hours fermented) and no baker's yeast: 4 hours of fermentation at 30°C

The sourdough was made with Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, like baker's yeast, and with 2 Lactobacilli (Lb. plantarum and Lb. rossiae).

Link to the study: Sourdough Fermented Breads are More Digestible than Those Started with Baker’s Yeast Alone: An In Vivo Challenge Dissecting Distinct Gastrointestinal Responses

About baker's yeast fermentation, my theory is that a longer fermentation with less baker's yeast lets more chances to sour bacteria and sour yeasts to devellop themselves. Because wheat flour is rich in lactobacilli (according to french wikipedia: lactobacille). So the long-time fermented dough with only baker's yeast, could have properties that may be closer to those of sourdough long-time fermented dough, and so, long-time baker's yeast fermented dough may also be more digestible.

Answer 4

If 1kg of flour, is 8cups and 680 grams of water, is 2.8 cups, it seems to me you do not have enough water to make a correct dough. When I make my rustic bread recipe and use 6 cups of flour I have to use at least 3cups of water. Your recipe is using 8 cups of flour. Another suggestion would be to use unbleached and unbromated flour, like King Arthur, a flour I always use.