Bread, which pizza dough is, has traditionally been made with only the ingredients necessary to leaven the flour. Those two ingredients are yeast and water. However, some bakers also add a bit of sugar and salt.
Traditionally, pizza dough does not have eggs, and they are not an ingredient in most recipes. However, adding eggs to pizza dough will give you a couple of different qualities that you may or may not like.
Can You Add Egg to the Pizza Dough?
Adding egg to the pizza dough will cause it to brown better, and egg whites will make the pizza crust crispier. However, putting an egg into the dough is an added cost, and there are other ways to brown the crust, and baking it for a little longer will make it crispier.
So, yes, you can add eggs to pizza dough, but it’s not necessary. However, if you want to get a browner, crusty base for your pizza ingredients, add a whole egg or egg whites to see the outcome.
Pizza Dough With Eggs
Adding eggs to pizza dough may make it richer in flavor, and if you are making a pizza or two, the technique is worth trying. However, if you need a recipe for making a lot of pizzas, give an egg a second, then a third thought because its price is volatile.
Most pizzerias use dough made from flour, water, and yeast. Sugar is often added because it too is a browning agent, and it only takes a little in the dough to make a difference. Sugar is also food for yeast, and adding a little to the mix will help make the dough lighter and browner.
Lean Dough vs. Rich Dough
The fewer ingredients anything I cook has in it, the happier I am. Pizza dough is easy enough for me to mess up without tossing an egg into the mix. However, it is an option that will give your pizza dough a different quality.
What Is Lean Dough?
Lean dough products include pizza crust, Cuban, French, and Italian loaves of bread. It also has some types of white and whole-wheat dinner rolls and grain bread, such as pumpernickel and rye.
The lean dough is for making basic bread and includes very few ingredients. It may have olive oil; however, it will not contain butter, egg, shortening, or lard.
Crusty bread made with lean dough is an excellent foundation for toppings, dressings, cheese, meat, and fresh veggies. That includes pizza dough; however, if you want to add an egg, or just egg white to your dough, you may like the results.
However, before doing so, you need to master getting flour, water, and yeast to form into a dough that you can stretch or roll out into pizza crust.
Although many pizza dough recipes do not call for oil or egg, adding a bit of olive oil to the mix will give you a crusty exterior. It will also give the dough a softer inside than if you leave the fat out.
What is Rich Dough?
Lean and rich rules of dough are not set in stone. Although, as cooks, we tend to color outside the lines, at times and strictly, by definition, the lean dough can become rich with eggs, sugar, and fat.
However, we know that adding sugar and eggs to the dough will yield coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls, and other sweetly flavored bread. Other delights you can make from rich dough that you do not sweeten are brioche and dinner rolls. Although they are not sweet, both have a high egg and butter content.
Rolled-in yeast doughs include croissants, a non-sweet rolled-in dough, and Danish, the sweet variant of rolled-in dough. The layering of fat and dough gives these two baked goods their layered, flaky textures.
Is There Egg in Gluten-Free Pizza Dough?
Some restaurant and commercial pizza doughs have eggs added to their gluten-free pizza crust. However, an egg has fat, and in the absence of fat in gluten-free pizza, you can use an egg to replace the fat instead of other fat substitutes.
If you are vegan, be aware that some places may add egg to their pizza crust, so it is best to ask. If you buy gluten-free pizza dough or crusts, read the label before assuming that the products are egg-free.
Other items are used in gluten-free bread to replace fat, including xanthan gum, modified tapioca starch, and whey protein isolate. You can also make a ‘flax egg’ with a tablespoon of flaxseed mixed well with three tablespoons of water and set it aside for five minutes.
The resulting mixture is a gelatinous product with the consistency of an egg. Vegans can use this egg replacement tip when making gluten-free pizza dough recipes or other recipes that call for egg.
Will Pizza Dough Without Eggs in It Store Longer?
Pizza dough made from water, flour, and yeast can be left at room temperature for hours. Over time, it may lose some puffiness and may get flat. However, nothing in the dough will poison you as there would be if it contained eggs, which need to remain refrigerated as much as possible.
Once you add eggs to the pizza dough, the time it can remain at room temperature is shortened to four hours. However, it would be better to keep that time at two hours or less.
When the bread is working, it is a warm environment and not a good place for raw eggs to remain longer than necessary. So, if you are adding an egg to your pizza dough, use it immediately or refrigerate it as soon as possible.
Most Pizza Dough Does Not Have Eggs.
Most pizza dough has a few simple ingredients, and that is not where the difficulty lies when making it. Working with flour and yeast can be messy and requires patience. If you get in a hurry and do not let your dough rise properly, you will get a flat crust.
As mentioned above, however, you can add eggs if you want to change the profile of your pizza dough because it will, whether you use whole eggs or only the whites.
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