Italian pizza master offers tips and demo

May 19, 2015, Mississauga, Ont. – Italian pizza master Alessandro Lo Stocco educated a keen-to-learn group at Moretti Forni Canada’s Pizza Days final session on May 14.

Moretti Forni’s Pizza Days ran May 12 to 14 at Euro-Milan’s Matheson Boulevard location in Mississauga. The four-hour educational program began with a presentation by Moretti Forni export sales manager Morena Baleani on the prevalence of pizza as a meal and snack food in Canada and discussion of eating occasions. There are six key “moments” during the day when pizzerias can offer food: breakfast at 7 a.m., brunch at 11 a.m., lunch at 12 noon, afternoon tea time, supper at 6 p.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. By diversifying in the foods they offer, pizzerias can capitalize on a growing trend among millennials of snacking throughout the day.

Moretti Forni’s Italian master chef Alessandro Lo Stocco followed up the presentation with a lesson in flour makeup. The group then moved to the kitchen to learn dough formulas, and see demonstrations of dough mixing and pizza and dessert preparation.

Participants sampled pizza, ciabatta, bread sticks, bread and cotto cream dessert pizza made by Chef Lo Stocco and Chef Francesco Zanasi.

Some tidbits Canadian Pizza picked up for our readers:

·      “00” flour contains approximately 55 per cent ash, lower than that in other types of dough. “0” flour contains 65 per cent, “1” flour contains 80 per cent, “2” contains 95 per cent and wholemeal 140 to 160 per cent ash.

·      The more of the flour that has been made using the endosperm – the part of the grain that provides energy, starch and protein – the whiter it will be. Whole-grain flour has the highest ash content and will be darker because the whole grain has been used.

·      The stronger the flour, the more protein it contains, and flour that contains significant protein can be stored longer.