I was pretty much out of the (pricey) Caputo 00 flour and the only bread flour I could find in the neighborhood market was Gold Medal. Saturday night, I removed half a pound of starter to a new container and added a half a pound of the remaining Caputo to it with an equal amount of water. Covered that, and let it sit on the counter overnight. I fed my mother starter the remaining Caputo and put it to bed as well.
On Sunday around noon, I mixed up a batch at 75% hydration using the Gold Medal flour and a pound of my starter; right away I could tell the difference in the dough, and it was not the good kind of difference: the Caputo and Giusto flour that I had been using has a very high gluten content -- clearly the Gold Medal doesn't. The dough was extremely sticky and prone to tearing. It was very hard to work with during the hand mix phase. The dough had no body, and the gluten strands were short and failed easily -- not at all like the long stretchy gluten strands I was used to getting from the other flours.
I gave the dough a little extra bench rest, and that helped a little. I did an initial shape and I was very skeptical that the dough was going to be workable at all. After folding, I did another initial shape -- I was hoping to develop some gluten -- then divided the dough into 9, 8 oz. clumps. I was able to form some of the dough into nice balls and gluten development was slightly better. The dough went into the fridge for some more fermentation. I hoped that by bake-time it would have a better body.
The gluten-free doughs were made from two brands of store-bought mixes. One mix was made by Bob's Red Mill (which required the inclusion of two eggs); the other was by Arrowhead Mills. Both used commercial yeast for leavening. The Red Mill mix went together fine and had the consistency of a yeasty cookie mix. The Arrowhead Mills mix was a sloppy mess. The instructions called for it to be kneaded with additional (not included) rice flour, that I didn't have. After a few minutes trying to knead it, I just glopped it back in the bowl and stirred it for an extra 10 minutes. Both doughs were put aside to rise for 20 minutes per their respective instructions.
At around 4, I lighted the oven and pulled out the yeast doughs from the fridge to warm to room temperature. The Arrowhead Mills had improved in consistency once it had risen a bit and both doughs were pressed into greased pizza or tart pans and covered.
By 5:30 the oven was white and at around 6:00 I started the bake with a small plain flatbread: one with only oil, salt and herbs. The oven was extremely hot -- over 800 degrees -- and it cooked in about 30 seconds. The dough had developed a better gluten structure in the fridge and was pretty workable, although a little more prone to tearing than is ideal.
After cooking 3 or 4 regular-dough pizzas, we made up a vegan pizza on one of the Red Mill, gluten-free doughs and slid it into the oven on a pizza pan. When the rice-cheese on top started to char, I pulled it out and sliced it up. The gluten free dough was very wet to start with, and had steamed in the pan. The flavor and texture were pretty good, though I'd love to figure out how to shape a gluten-free pizza so that I could hearth cook it!
Five more regular-dough pizzas and the Arrowhead Mills gluten free pie were baked before the night was over. The Arrowhead Mills dough had good flavor and texture, but stuck horribly to the pan!
My two favorite pizzas of the night were the first one (the plain flatbread) and the last one: pesto, goat cheese, and broccoli rabe with a bit of sea salt. I'll work on taking some pizza pictures -- but honestly the pizzas disappear into peoples bellies before I can snap a photo.
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