Crunching the Numbers. What Exactly Is In #superdough. #mike

This #Subway sandwich had three meats, Swiss cheese, red onion, tomato, lettuce, mayo and mustard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What exactly is in our pizza dough?

 

A load of pizza dough is approximately 37.5 lbs., or thirty dough-balls at twenty ounces each. One and a quarter pounds times thirty is 37.5 lbs.

A pound is sixteen ounces. 37.5 x 16 = 600 ounces. I only made four batches today, which is not really the focus of this story, but we do slow down in winter.

We are using four ounces of sugar, (more in winter, which helps in the rise) and two ounces of salt in a batch of dough.

4 divided by 600 equals: 0.006666666 etc. Now, according to the classic mathematical formula, you are supposed to multiply by 100, = 0.66.

If you do this calculation on a machine, you will see a couple of extra decimal places in there. It’s pretty simple just to take them out.

This means our dough is 0.666 (or 0.67) % sugar, on average, using the summer recipe. That last decimal place, anything five or over is rounded up. Anything four or less is rounded down. Zero does not need to be rounded off.

In Ireland, Subway’s buns were deemed by the government to be a confectionery, i.e., a candy product. That is because the bread was found to be ten percent or more in terms of sugar content. Bread is a staple product of the people’s diet, candy is a luxury and therefore subject to a ‘sin’ tax. As for myself, I like their sandwiches, and you can send me a gift card at any time, also, their food science techs are obviously looking for that dopamine ‘hit’, even if we can’t really taste all that sugar when we’re eating the actual submarine sandwich. They're trying to make fast food addictive, which only works if the people have the money to indulge such addictions...that, as they say, is a story for another day.

I bought an assorted cold cuts sandwich, 12”, the other day for $9.80 CDN, just to put that in perspective. I had half for lunch and the other half a bit later on... #snork

2 divided by 600 equals: 0.00333333 etc. Take out them decimal places…

Our dough is 0.33 % salt on average. Rounded off, that’s 0.3 % salt, on average.

This next bit is a little tough and I needed to think about it…

Two cups of oil is sixteen ounces, in liquid measurement, i.e., by volume. Divide that by 600 ounces of pizza dough. That being said, we could say that a typical batch of pizza dough is 02.66 % cooking oil—only problem here is that the dough is by weight and the oil is by volume.

Now, in terms of size, one ounce of pizza dough is roughly comparable to one cubic inch of volume. It's sort of meaningless, but I just thought I would throw that in there.

In order to properly convert, we would put a clean, empty measuring cup on the scales and zero the scales. Put two cups of oil in the cup, and then weigh it. This number is now converted from liquid volume to weight, and then you would do the math in the usual manner.

Any kid that took Grade 10 science class can do it. Nowadays, you don’t even have to.

That’s because we have the internet.

Using an online conversion, sixteen ounces of cooking oil weighs 14.7 ounces. 14.7 divided by 600 = 0.0245. We push the decimal point two spaces to the right.

Our pizza dough is 2.45 % cooking oil by weight.

My math is pretty basic, but there are online tools and our own instincts can tell us a lot. I know damned well that two cups of oil in thirty-five pounds is not a minute fraction beginning in the third decimal place. It is, after all, one pound (approx.), out of 35. In other words, another mental check on the math.

The question is, how does one prove it to one’s own satisfaction.

Another question, how many calories per 100 grams? Assuming one has the time to crunch the numbers, we could probably come up with some kind of a number.

Our secret ingredient is love, ladies and gentlemen, otherwise it would hardly be worth doing, would it... 

And love doesn't weigh anything at all, does it.

 

#mike

 

Notes.

 

In winter, our customer’s premises are colder. They’re pulling bins of dough and letting them thaw and rise overnight in a separate room, which is not warm like the kitchen. Hence, the summer and winter recipe. (The yeast eats the sugar, which creates the bubbles which make it rise. By bumping up the sugar and yes, the yeast, we're merely speeding up the biochemical reaction, due to the factor of heat, which is reduced in winter.)

There are no milk and no dairy products in our pizza dough, which is also used for bread and buns, etc. The only other ingredients are water, electricity, rent, transportation...you get the idea. Oh, yeah, labour.

#superdough uses Strong Baker’s Flour by P & H Milling Group.

We are using Messina, a 50/50 % mix of soy and canola oil from Costco.

Red Star Dry Active Yeast in 2-lb. vacuum packs are our preferred choice.

#superdough is a frozen dough produced in some quantities.

 

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Thank you for reading.