Gumline
Characteristics
Layer of soggy dough between crust and cheese.
Layer of raw dough in between the crust and the toppings.
Causes
- Moisture is trapped between the cheese and the crust.
- Moisture released by toppings.
- Sauce from refrigerator.
- Excessive amount of sauce.
- Pizza pre-stretched and pre-sauced.
- Low yeast activity.
- Natural separation of the sauce when water is added to it.
How To Fix It:
- Sauce should not be thinned with water. Reduce the moisture in whole tomatoes using a strainer. Blend with other tomatoes with less moisture (ground tomatoes, tomato paste).
- It is good practice to sauté the vegetables before using them on pizza.
- Avoid covering the vegetables with cheese.
- Sauce should not be used straight from refrigerator to pizza.
- The amount of sauce should be adequate to the size of the pizza with an acceptable increase of 10% when extra is requested.
- Avoid assembling the pizza in advance before baking it. The toppings will start soaking the dough.
- When there is not enough yeast activity in the dough, it won’t rise properly in the oven, collapsing and preventing the ingredients from cooking properly.
- Stir the sauce before adding it to each pizza.
