The Malnati's Pizza Experiment, Part II

I am well on my way to discovering a recipe that mimics my beloved Malanti's pizza.  I began by making a pizza with a version of my basic quiche crust, without researching online at all.  I knew that looking online would present me with a neverending avalanche of forum posts and recipe-site trolls and it would just be confusing.  So I did some cooking and tweaking before I even started to do any research online.  That way I could put all the nonsense into perspective.

I'm so glad I waited.  When I finally dove into the online arguements today, I did indeed find what I was afraid of.  Luckily I was armed with the experience of cooking my own pizzas to help me sort it all out.  There is a lot of conflicting advice out there regarding how to reach an actual authentic Malnati's style pizza crust. 

The advice that seemed to ring the most true came down to the use of yeast.  Most people who seem to actually know what Malnati's pizza is supposed to taste like seemed to agree that the yeast in their recipe is just for taste and not for leavening (or rising), the way most breads use yeast (including pizza dough).  I wrote last time that I supsected they didn't even use yeast.  This is because I know that the crust doesn't end up with the texture of something that is leavened with yeast.  However, I hadn't considered that they might just use the yeast as a flavor.  You can put the yeast in without letting it rise and without developing much of the gluten in the dough. 

Essentially, what that would be is a standard savory pastry dough (like my quiche crust), but with yeast added for flavor.  That's what I'm working on now.  And by "working on now," I mean, there's a pizza in my oven as I type.  I'm not sure if it's the right crust yet, but it sure smells right! 

One thing that I'm still unclear on is the type of fat used to make the pizza-pastry crust.  I'm still using mostly butter and a little olive oil, but many suggestions out there in the interwebs say to use a combo of olive oil and some type of neutral veggetable oil, like corn oil.  Perhaps this is indeed what Malnati's uses, instead of butter, I don't know, but it sure tastes like butter in their crust to me, so I'm still clinging to that ingredient for the moment.  I hope this pizza pie gets a little closer to my goal. 

The experiment rolls on...