Is Champagne the Secret to Nice Pizza Dough?

Champagne famously goes with nearly any dish due to its food-friendly acidity and carbonation. However how does it work as a pizza ingredient? 

Serafina, an Italian restaurant group based mostly in New York Metropolis with a handful of outposts world wide, is testing out the concept with its new Champagne Pizza. As of Monday, prospects can order the limited-edition menu merchandise, which incorporates Veuve Clicquot within the dough and is topped with mozzarella and cacio e pepe sauce. The Champagne-infused dish sells for $29. 

I used to be intrigued by the idea, not solely due to a primal response to seeing the phrases “Champagne Pizza” in my inbox, but in addition the speculation behind the dish. It is smart that Champagne would work in a pizza dough because it retains pure yeasty qualities from the wine-making course of.

So, at a preview lunch held at Serafina’s new Union Sq. location, I attempted two wood-fired pies made with the Champagne dough: the brand new cacio e pepe taste and the favored tartufo nero (black truffle). House owners Vittorio Assaf and Fabio Granato mentioned they merely changed the water within the ordinary pizza dough recipe with an equal quantity of Veuve Clicquot, which cooks off throughout the baking course of.

How did these pies fold up? (Sorry.) The feel of the thin-style crust was good and crispy. Taste-wise, each have been scrumptious, particularly the cacio e pepe, which principally tasted like grownup mac and cheese. That mentioned, there wasn’t a perceptible Champagne taste to the crust itself. Any distinguished Champagne notes have been possible cooked off throughout the baking course of, and what remained tasted like…properly, pizza crust, which is to say yeasty and ever so barely candy. That’s arguably factor for pizza purists, but it surely additionally bears questioning: Is that this dough well worth the dough?

If you end up at a Serafina department, the $29 pie is akin to different pizzas on the menu, which vary in value from $23–31. And as Assaf and Granato famous, it’s a pleasant and inclusive thought for graduations or different celebratory events the place not everyone seems to be imbibing. However ought to Champagne be your new secret ingredient for selfmade pies? 

I requested Daniel Gritzer, senior culinary director of our sibling model Critical Eats, concerning the potential for Champagne in pizza dough. Whereas receptive to the concept, he was skeptical. 

“Including carbonated liquids to batters and doughs just isn’t unprecedented and might typically be helpful. The carbonation creates bubbles, which might result in airier outcomes. And no doubt, any ingredient like Champagne, which has taste all its personal, can move that taste on to the dough,” says Gritzer.

“However—and it’s a giant however—pouring dear Champagne right into a pizza dough sounds much more like a advertising and marketing stunt than a baking greatest observe. There are way more economical methods of creating top-notch pizza dough…specifically, working with high-quality primary components and elegantly utilizing yeast, time, and method to make nice dough.” 

“I’d save the bubbly for the wine glass,” he provides.

Should you do wish to experiment with glowing wine in your cooking at dwelling, it could be price beginning with one thing extra reasonably priced, like prosecco. Nevertheless, with pizza specifically, the mixture of flavors will most likely overpower any of the wine’s remaining profile, particularly whenever you think about toppings like tomato sauce and cheese, notes Gritzer.

“So many flavors are generated naturally by a gradual dough fermentation, together with lots of these yeasty qualities that one will get in a wine like Champagne, that I’m actually uncertain the wine goes to do a lot in any respect,” he says. 

Serving Champagne with pizza, although? That’s at all times an ideal thought.