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Trying to find a way to consume self-rising flour, I decided to conduct a food experiment on using self-rising flour vs all-purpose flour with the exact same ingredients, under 2 different overnight rising conditions: room temperature vs fridge. These 2 variables (flour and rising condition) gave me 4 different pizza dough with 4 different texture. Sharing my food experiment process, results, observation here! Also attached the pizza toppings I used 🙂 Enjoy!

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QUICK TAKEAWAYS:

• Self-rising flour pizza dough is thinner and crispier than all-purpose flour pizza dough which is thicker and softer
• Fridge overnight rising pizza dough rise less than room temperature overnight rising pizza dough, and is crispier. RT rising dough might have sour taste from fermentation.
• Personal favorite: all-purpose flour dough rising in fridge overnight
• Watch out for wet topping with tomato sauce and cheese
• Try to moist drier topping with cheese and olive oil
• No pizza stone? Overlay 2 baking pan, turn upside down to mimic pizza stone
• Preheat baking pans/pizza stone with oven to highest temperature so when the pizza is added on, heat comes from bottom upwards, cooking the thicker crust, without burning toppings or have uncooked crust.

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RECIPE

Part I: Day 1 making dough

4 mini pizza with 4 different conditions of 2 flours: all-purpose flour vs self-rising flour.

	Self-Rising Flour	All Purpose Flour
flour	250g	250g
salt	NA	2g
oil	12.5g	12.5g
yeast	1g	1g
RT water	175g	175g

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Process:

• activate yeast with water, mix well
• mix flour, salt and oil
• add in yeast + water
• form a soft dough, no need to knead yet
• rest 20mins
• knead dough till surface is smooth
  • ** rest again and knead if surface breaks
• cut dough into half (each for overnight-rising condition)
• coat 4 dough with olive oil
• ** if want to eat softer, bread-like pizza dough, can add more yeast, rise and bake pizza same day

Four conditions:

Self-rising flour, fridge overnight	All-purpose flour, fridge overnight
Self-rising flour, RT overnight	All-purpose flour, RT overnight

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RT overnight: stronger alcohol taste, more sour dough, will taste more crispy

Fridge overnight: in between bread-like and crispy textur

Observation: dough in fridge did not rise much; dough in RT double their sizes

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Part II: Day 2 Pizza Dough & Baking

• ** if do not have pizza stone ** lay two baking pan on top of each other, in mimic the thickness of pizza stone, and prevent heat from fluctuating too much.
• turn baking pans-set upside down, the bottom on top, put in oven.
• preheat oven to 550F or oven’s highest temperature
• degas
• knead dough into smoother surface
• rest & rise for 2 hours at RT, cover with cloth/plastic wrap

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• slightly press down to dough, forming a circle shape dough
• grab onto the edge of the dough, let the weight of dough stretch the dough; move where your fingers grab on till the whole dough’s edge has been stretch
  • not using a roller so won’t break air bubble
• add pizza topping

• bake 5-6 mins
  • mine took around 10mins, a lot of liquid/juice from tomato sauce and cheese

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Pizza Dough Crust Texture Comparison:

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BONUS: Pizza Toppings

“Margarita” without basil leaves (top right and bottom right):

• tomato sauce at the bottom (tried 2 different tomato sauce)
• halved-grape tomato, corn
• mozzarella
• Comment: be careful about liquid from tomato sauce and cheese. Could end up with a really wet pizza..!

“Meat Sauce” pizza (top left):

• spicy pasta meat sauce at the bottom
• halved-grape tomato, corn
• Comment: flavor too strong for pizza; texture very dry

Pesto Potato pizza (bottom left):

• seed mix:
  • oregano
  • sesame seeds
  • lemon zest (I do not have)
  • cumin
  • pinch of both salt and pepper
• bottom: olive oil
• sprinkle seed mix
• spread pesto
• layer potato
• sprinkle rest of seed mix
• sprinkle olive oil
• add burrata ( I don’t have either)
• Comment: flavorful but a bit dry, because no burrata or not enough olive oil?

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