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The reason Round Table Crust Wins Hearts (And Why It is Different)
Round Table Pizza Dough Recipe
And most likely, before anything, you remember the crust should you have grown up in any sort of proximity to an establishment that offers Round Table Pizza. Neither Neapolitan nor pan deep–it is a thousandth part of a thin crust, with its crackery bite and tender flavor, its layered crumb, its rolled or sliced edge, that rims the toppings. It is commonly referred to by its fans as a cross between light cracker crust and a standard American thin. That said personality is based upon the manner in which the dough is shaped: sheeted and frequently laminated (folded) by a dough sheeter rather than being tossed by hand. Sheeting breaks up gas cells and de gasses the dough as it forms gluten; and as you keep sheeting and rerunning it (lamination) you form thin layers to bake up to that typical slightly-flaky, stratified texture. According to commercial literature of sheeting, these crusts are different: it is the sheeting of the dough which makes them feel different: it gasses out and tightens, and laminated passes can make the crust crisper and flatter and still with structure.
What we also know, too, because Round Table says it in their own narrative and their FAQs, is that the brand identity is based on dough rolled fresh daily in store (a brand point of pride that they repeat frequently), which aligns with the ethos of honest pizza which is what made them popular since 1959. The company boasts of the adherence to the time-tested recipes, hand-rolled dough being made daily in the store, which goes a long way to explain the similar profile of the crust across stores as ownership changed over the decades.
In the long-term the practice of community sleuthing has revealed some colour: Round Table and other West Coast chains (Shakey’s, Straw Hat) used to be extremely reliant on sheeters and, historically, on pass fold/laminate to achieve that internal laminate texture you do not find in hand tossed pies. That is why home cloners tend to follow the technique rather than the recipes–the procedure is what makes the crust feel so good.
A Little Creation Story and The Rolled Fresh Daily Guarantee.
Round Table was founded in 1959 in Menlo Park, California by Bill Larson and expanded to hundreds of locations. It belongs to the western pizza legend: the branding of friends in fun-filled medieval ways, family pizza nights, and games in the arcade and pies stacked up. Even the name of the Round Table originates notoriously with regard to a physical round table upon which communal meals could be eaten. According to the current brand narrative, published by the brand (and highlighted by the press materials in the redesign of the brand in 2019), Round Table remains based on the initial values of the founder fresh dough every day, homemade sauce, and the philosophy of not compromising.
The corporate FAQ continues to make it clear that dough promise–and, to the cheese fans, also shows the house cheese blend as well (more below): the culture is rolled fresh daily, and that matches the sheeter based workflow that is evident in most of the stores. Although equipment and ownership can change, that commitment of daily made dough will be a front and center brand pillar.
Pizza Blueprint Ingredient Blueprint of a Round Table-Style Dough.
A Round Table Pizza Dough Recipe that is a home recipe is of the realistic style, it uses a lean, low hydration dough (compared to artisan styles), small amount of sugar, fat and nonfat dry milk then sheeting/laminating which provides the texture. In a long-time community forum, a premix spec, found in stores, was discovered, a mixture of flour, salt, Crisco (shortening), sugar, nonfat dry milk, yeast, with a certain amount of water added (a post cites 24.25lbs premix +11lbs water). Although the proportion of flour in that premix does not publicly come out, the proportion highlights a firmer, smoother friendly dough that fits the archetypal viewpoint.
Another back office gimmick that continues to appear in former employee stories: scrap or old dough. A number of former staffers and cloners complain that the thin crust of Round Table came in about half scrap dough of the day before, augmented with half new. This pate fermentee method not only cuts down on waste, it adds flavor and, most importantly, bakes more like the original one as the old pastry was already sheeted/laminated the day before. (Pan style, in comparison, has been characterized as employing 100 percent fresh dough.) It is a smart workflow trick that you can replicate at home assuming that you make dough twice in a row.
An expedient technical excursion on commercial sheeting literature: the doughs may harden during the sheeting operation (gluten development), so chains might add dough relaxers (such as l cysteine or other conditioners) or just pause the sheeted dough and resume sheeting later. Those rests ensure that the dough does not spring back and to allow you to strike full diameter without a tear. You will do the same at home, bar short bench rests between folds/passes.
Optional Dough Conditioners, Nonfat Dry Milk and the Old Dough Trick.
Now, let’s translate those lessons to the list of a home baker that he/she buys:
Flour: A good all purpose or bread flour will be fine. Hydration should be moderate to low (approximately 45-52% when sheeting at home) in order to ensure that the dough does not stick to the rolling pin or pasta roller. The premix of the chain is an indication of poor absorption in the business environment.
Fat: Shortening (Crisco) in the dough was mentioned explicitly, at home a combination of neutral oil + a little bit of shortening keeps the texture clean and contributes to preserving.
Sugar: It contributes to fermentation and browning, in small amount. The house crust is savoury, not sweet; make it light.
Nonfat dry milk: It is included in the premix numerous times; it enhances the tenderness and the browning. Do not replace liquid milk 1: 1 without changing hydration–it may impact on gluten.
Yeast: Instant is best used in short mix + sheeter method.
Salt: Typical 1.8-2.2% of flour weight.
Optional dough relaxer: You do not need it at home; however, in case of the problem of snap back, pause between movements. Commercial notes include the additive L cysteine to counter sheeter induced gluten tightening.
Old dough: When making 2 pies in a row the half of your dough (covered, chilled) is saved to be used tomorrow as half of the mix to get closer to the chew and taste of homemade pie. Particularly, former employees mentioned 50/50 scrap/fresh of thin crust.
Round Table Pizza Dough Recipe (Home Copycat)
Note: It is a clone of the home formula–not the proprietary formula–and it is programmed to provide you with Round Table style texture, lamination, and bake with common home equipment.
Yield: 2, 14 inch thin crust pies.
Baker’s % target (approx.):
Flour (100%): 500 g
Water (48%): 240g (adjust-10g yours/climate)
Shortening (4%): 20 g
Neutral oil (2%): 10 g
Sugar (2%): 10 g
Nonfat dry milk (3%): 15 g
Salt (2%): 10 g
Instant yeast (0.8%): 4 g
Why these numbers? They resemble a firmer dough that sheets smoothly, incorporates nonfat dry milk and fat (in the premix) and remains in the thin, crisp lean layer characteristic of the chain original thin–yet without a commercial sheeter. Community threads would use nonfat dry milk + shortening in the premix, low absorption doughs to sheeting, and (optionally) old dough to add flavor.
Step by Step Method, Lamination Passes and Docking.
1) Mix (short mix): Add yeast, sugar, water: flour, nonfat dry milk, salt and fats (shortening + oil). Combine and smooth until smooth(3-5 minutes by hand). You desire low to moderate gluten development since the sheeter/rolling will take care of the rest; excessively mixing it now causes the dough to struggle against you in the future. Commercial notes on sheeting insist that sheeting is a work-added, to which end it is better to keep the mix short.
2) Bench rest: Cover; rest 15-20 min. at room temperature. This loosens the gluten before rolling to ensure that you do not tear up the dough.
3) First pass (sheet/roll): Dough cut into two equal sized pieces. Rolling in one at a time, dust off lightly with flour and roll thin (3-4 mm). In the case you have a pasta roller, you turn down to the widest and makes a notch at a time until you get a thin sheet.
4) Fold (lamination): Fold the sheet in letter shape (trifold) and roll again. Perform 2-3 total folds/passes, with 5 min of rest in-between passes, should you experience snap back. This is a repeating step of lamination of Round Table cloners, to get specific layers defined; commercial descriptions of laminated, sheeted doughs follow this method.
5) Final sheet & cut: Roll to 14-15 inches diameter, aiming at a thickness of 2-3 mm (it puffs a little in the oven). copy onto perforated paper/parchment. Dock the center using a docker or fork without undocking 2-3 cm all the way round at the rim so that you still have a soft edge. Docking lessens blistering in sheeted doughs, and commercial processes habitually dock very thin sheeted skins.
6)Short rest: 1015 mins to relax prior to topping. In case the dough becomes shrinking, then place it in another 5 minutes and re stretching.
7) Top & bake (see below Baking Strategy): Round Table bakes un parbaked skins (the crust is not pre baked) then tops it heavily, and bakes to a crisp golden bottom. In their conceptualized workflows, there is no par bake assumed in community dialogues of the chain.
Old dough option (day to day): Save an approximation of 240-250 g of dough, still in a refrigerator, overnight. Tomorrow take that as half the weight of flour in the mixture–i.e. old dough + new flour/water/yeast/salt/fats to give the same final weight of the dough. Thin was specially reported by ex employees as 50%.
Sheeter vs. Rolling Pin (No Fancy Gear?): Tools & Techniques. No Problem.)
The key to this style is a commercial dough sheeter, which you can surprisingly successfully replicate at home:
Rolling pin and patience: The lamination is based on folds and repetition–not thinness alone. Fold, roll, rest. Repeat. That’s where layers form. Commercial operators may repeat a dough ribbon several times, and may even slice skins off a continuous sheet.
Pasta machine: Work your dough as pasta dough: begin big, step down. Stop when it is paper thin–you still desire structure.
Homemade sheeter: Depending on your disposition, a basic roller setup can be constructed; others have shown DIY dough rollers to laminate some dough (originally croissants/phyllo), which can also be used to sheet pizza dough at home.
The benefit of lamination here: In pastry, lamination would result in the appearance of flakes that were formed by mixing dough with fat. Where there is dough on dough lamination (no butter layers), the lamination still rearranges gluten and gas distributions and facilitates a feathery layered bite when baked thin and crisp in pizza. The general baking literature on lamination (situated in pastry and bread contexts) describes the mechanisms by which a combination of folding and sheeting determine the ultimate texture–even in the absence of butter.
What Lamination is (and why it works) in Pizza Dough.
Repetition sheeting is technically a work input that builds up gluten; fold and sheet cycles degas and tighten the dough so that the crumb can be very thin and even and that the crumb is disciplined (made out of tiny cells). In commercial writing, repeated sheetings may effectively replace a certain amount of mixing, i.e. the rollers do the developing, not only in the bowl. It is a good idea to mix up front short, you know–you never overtighten before the sheeter works. In a text on dough sheeting, engineering notes that there is even an optimum work input in which volume/texture could be the best; exceed this and the dough could be made tough and lose its tenderness. To the home cloner, the lesson is easy: just a few folds suffice, and a couple of breaks in between make the dough go along.
Layered, laminated interiors are also reported by some cloners of the Round Table when they cut through a baked crust- visible strata which fall away slightly. When you are breaking the edge, and you see that there are layers, you must have nailed both ends of the folds, and baked. Hypothesis According to community posts about laminated crusts, this visual indicator is confirmed.
Dough Management (Timing Is Flavor) Fermentation.
To achieve the right taste and be able to work with the dough using a rolling pin, three levers are required:
1) Short initial mix + rests: Mix only to blend, then bench rest 15-20min. This reduces snap back later. In commercial notes concerning sheeting developing gluten, the reason you do not want to over mix up front is explained.
2) Cool ferment: Bulk (or balled) 24-48 hour rest in the fridge introduces a slight level of acidity and complexity. Round Table shops focus more on everyday dough, although overnights cold gives a closer taste to many cloners. And when you are working with old dough the flavor is still richer.
3) Scrap/ old dough: The 50/50 scrap/ fresh method used by staffers does two things; flavor and reliability of process (Yesterday’s already laminated dough trains today’s batch when sheeted together). When you can not do old dough, you can add a low preferment (a simple poolish) to achieve a similar complexity enhancement–though it is not the store technique, it is a good hack.
Relaxation Rests and Snap Back Prevention Schedule, the Old Dough.
A practical two day plan:
Day 1 evening: Knead (short mix) dough. Rest 20 minutes. Ball or keep as a bulk. Refrigerate overnight.
Day 2 morning: Half of the day, pull half to use later on as the next day old dough (chilled). Also with the rest, sheet + fold 2-3 times, with short 5-10 minutes rest between each fold, until dough remains where you put it. Rest once more 10 min, shape to size, dock, top and bake.
Day 2 evening: Prepare another batch, and to-morrow prepare 50 per cent old and 50 per cent fresh in your thin crust. This practice of 50/50 thin crust is confirmed by former employees; a few report that pan dough is straight fresh.
With relentless snap back, you must have more time between the passes or you must add a little more moisture by 1-2% to make the dough more pliable. Commercial operators tend to use dough relaxers (e.g. L cysteine) to accelerate this, but at home, time is your conditioner.
Sauce, Cheese & Build Nailing the Classic Round Table Profile.
The fine crust will not sing unless it is spiced with the proper sauce and cheese. The FAQ of Round Table itself tells about the house cheese combination 80% whole milk mozzarella, 10% aged cheddar, 10% provolone. It is that cheddar that makes the pies read a little crisper and deeper than a simple mozz–do not skip it to get the brand feeling.
Sauce is cloudier since there is no official publicly known formula of the sauce, but old time cloners have been running up notes since time immemorial. One of the popular threads is a red sauce profile, containing oregano, basil, garlic powder, a pinch of sweetness and (hotly contested) coriander/cumin in minute quantities to create a background that is spicy and citrusy. In case you find that cumin is making it too Tex Mex, you can simply use ground coriander instead; testers have said it is the more correct of the two aromatics, sparsely used. Allow your sauce time to blend in the refrigerator (one day).
The chain is reflected in build order, which is: sauce, a hefty blanket of cheese (the entire mixture), and toppings. It is a forward toppings pizza, do keep in mind, though; a sheeted thin can be soggy when loaded up by sloppy vegetables. Blot high moisture toppings (such as mushrooms) or pre saut lightly to push out the water to give this style the crisp bottom it has to have.
The 80/10/10 Cheese Blend, Sauce Notes & Topping Strategy.
Cheese: Mix 80% WMM mozz and 10% orange cheddar and 10% provolone. This corresponds perfectly to the brand FAQ–use it to adjust the Round Table mouthfeel and color.
Sauce: Begin with tomato paste + water; add oregano, basil, garlic powder, a little sugar, salt and a drop of ground coriander (optional, a pinch of cumin). Age overnight. According to community testers, a lift characteristic of coriander is missing: its citrusy quality.
Toppings: Round Table is famous with piled high pizza; be generous but even with wet toppings, held down. On-brand combinations are available, and the nutrition cards and menu PDFs have popular builds (King Arthur Supreme, Montague’s All Meat, and so on).
That Crackery Yet Tender Bite Baking Strategy.
Round Table bakes sheeted, not par baked, skins. For home ovens:
Preheat: It must be heated at a temperature of 260-290degC (500-550degF) with a steel or stone placed on a high rack and left to heat 45-60 minutes. A steel turns a clinker bottom; a stone smokes a softer.
Perforated pans: A perforated pizza pan can be used to dry the bottom, although you can use any surface that is non-sloped.
Bake time: 6-9 minutes with regards to oven and equipment. Pull when the bottom is speckled, and the rim is covered with flaky layers of light browsing.
Proof or not? Smeared thin crusts do not receive a lengthy proof–they are docked and baked comparatively fast so as to maintain them flat and stratified. Community posts always assume Round Table skins to be sheeted/docked/straight baked.
Stones vs. Steels, Over Temps, Proof vs. No Proof, and No Par Bake
Commercial notes regarding sheeted, laminated crusts have been talking about the subject of flatness and degassing–that is why it is so important to dock the center of the crust: big bubbles will ensure the ruin of the uniform bake. A steel will get you bottom set (crackery) quicker and a stone will get you a smoother finish. In case your top of the oven is slow, change to broil during the final 30-60 s. With regard to par baking, no indication is given that this is part of the Round Table process; no one speaks of cloners or ex-employees talking directly in the conveyor/deck setting.
Troubleshooting & Pro Tips
The dough continues to spring back.
You should have another rest between passes, or another drop of water. At home, time does the job of counteracting sheeter induced tightening that commercial operations combat with the help of dough relaxers.
I don’t see the layered edge.
Give it a fold or two (do not over fold), do not forget to dock, and bake the slightest bit hotter to give it a sharper outline. In case your dough is too moist, lamination definition loses meaning.
Bottom’s pale or soft.
This should be used with a steel but preheated longer to prevent overloaded wet toppings. Such a small sugar content (such as 2%) and nonfat dry milk will assist in browning, which is what the premix is pointing to.
Tough crust.
Likely over worked. A short mix is used and lamination is limited to 2-3 passes and the dough becomes difficult to handle hence a rest. According to engineering notes of sheeting, the optimum input of work is not more.
It tastes bland.
Salt targets ~2%; don’t skimp. So here is what some Round Table informants tell us; crust of the dough is half scrap–you can get more flavor out of it when you take it.
Crisp vs. Tough, Definition of Layer, Shrinkage, Salt and Hydration Tuning.
Not leathery: Maintaining hydration less than, but not more than, 52, bake hot, but not par bake.
Layers that can be observed: Fold 2-3 times in all; any further and you run the risk of being tough.
Shrinkage (snap back): Rest 5-10 min between strokes; do not make it. Commercial notes: put either relaxers or rests to make sure it does not shrink.
Salt & sugar: the dough of Round Table is not sweet. Keep sugar ~2%, salt near 2%. Premix contains sugar + NFDM to brown and tender.
Hydration: Add 5-10 g water at a time, depending on the thirstiness of your flour, or the dryness of your kitchen. You still desire a stiff dough which folds well.
Nutrition, Allergens &Crust Options.
When you are placing a macro order or are serving a mixed population, the nutritional and allergen guides published by Round Table are your most reliable sources. The company offers downloadable PDFs (and an interactive menu via Nutritionix) of pizzas and components; and they label allergens (such as soy in pan spray on cooking disks) and cross contact facts in a common kitchen.
Remarkable callouts that you can practice at home:
Gluten free crust: The company has a Traditional Pan Style gluten free crust (with cross contact warnings). When buying gluten sensitive, watch it–at the store or at home when you touch the wheat flour.
Cheese mixture: When you are not using animal rennet, Round Table uses microbial enzyme in the cheeses. It is a simple thing to imitate at the shopping mall.
Crust variations: Menus are different at different locations (original thin, pan, stuffed, some limited crusts). Sometimes independent blogs refer to Skinny Crust as a thinner roll of the standard dough (sold as lower carb on occasion in some of their promotions), but the official documentation of the brand varies with time, always check your local menu.
Gluten Free Pan, Skinny Crust Notes and Brand Nutrition Links.
GF Pan: A good choice when a guest has to have something without gluten; this brand advises that it might be prepared with other baked goods. Whether you want to imitate at home, special equipment and clean surfaces are the essentials.
Skinny Crust: It has been referred to as the same dough rolled even thinner by Periodic marketing. When you like that profile, roll to 1-2 mm, dock heavily and bake hard to give you a shatter crisp bite. (Note: this promo is mentioned in independent articles, but make sure you can find it in your store.)
Nutrition finder: Through the Nutrition PDF or the entries of Nutritionix, you can estimate the cals/sodium/slice based on size, crust, and topping selection. Fabulous party menu planner.
