You might have heard it before, but we will state it again that pizza is one of the foods that you can have at any given time and for any given cause. Hungry? Get a slice or two! Planning to watch some movies? Take some slices with you! Do not have dinner prepared? Make yourself a pizza!
That being said, if you have it quite often, there is a high chance that you prepare a good amount of dough and make pizzas with it throughout the week. And you might have wondered — does pizza dough go bad while you were preparing the latest batch?
Well, it is your lucky day then because you have just stumbled upon the right source to get the answer. And we will not only answer that to you but also let you know about the things related to the topic.
Can Pizza Dough Go Bad and Rob the Banks of Your State?
No, pizza doughs are not capable of turning bad and start robbing people. However, with the puns aside, they can go bad and become unsafe for eating, which should be your main concern because you would not want to make a limitless visit to the toilet. That is why you should stay away from weirdos.
Even though the dough can go bad, it takes a reasonable amount of time. As most of the doughs contain a fair amount of eggs and milk-based ingredients, they will turn bad in about a couple of hours if you do not store them properly. And yes, by not storing it properly, we refer to keeping it at room temperature.
However, if you keep it in an ideal place, which is a fridge, it will stay good for up to 5 to 10 days. And after that, it is going to turn bad, and you would not have that much of a good experience if you eat, which we will come back to later.
Now, you might be wondering, if you have mixed the ingredients with yeast, why is the mixture going to turn bad? Well, after a couple of days, the yeast will get exhausted. And it will not be able to make the mixture rise anymore. Instead, it will start over-proofing the dough.
On that note, if you do bake an over-proofed dough, it will flatten. And flattened dough does not only look unappetizing, but they also are not easy to consume either. However, an over-proofed one is not the same thing as a bad dough. Bad doughs have bacterias in them, which an over-proofed dough will not have.
We think that the dough that is just about to overproof itself is the best dough for pizza. These have a unique taste to them, which you will not find in the pizzas that you will buy in the restaurant.
Signs That Suggests Your Dough Has Gone Bad
Standard dough, which does not have milk-based products or eggs, has a long shelf life. As they contain traditional ingredients, they will not go rancid that fast. However, the ones that do contain milk-based products and have eggs in them are the ones that will go bad after a while.
And the signs that indicate that the dough has gone bad are as follows:
i. An Off-Smell
If you have handled a lot of doughs, you might have already accustomed yourself to what a good dough smells like. And if, at some point, you find that the dough that you have stored for making pizzas later does not have that smell, there is a high chance that it has gone bad.
However, do keep in mind that not all of the bad smells mean that the dough has gone bad. There is a high chance that the dough might smell like beer when the yeast is fermenting, which is not a proper indication.
You might even get a smell that will be a bit sour or alcoholic. Those are not also the smell that would indicate that the dough has gone bad. The smell that you are basically looking for when you are trying to find if the dough has gone bad is a rancid smell.
ii. Visible Signs of Molds and Bacteria
As you know by now, you should not eat something that has molds on it. The same thing goes for the doughs as well. Even though it is not yet processed, you should not use the doughs that have molds on them.
Aside from the molds, you must not use the mixtures that have signs of bacterial growth on them. If you happen to consume them, there is a high chance that you will fall ill. And you might even be a victim of food poisoning, which would not be an experience that you will want to have.
What Will Happen If You Eat a Bad Pizza Dough?
Before anything else, we would like to state that you should never eat raw pizza dough. Though cookie dough is something that most people enjoy raw, pizza dough is in a whole different league. Usually, raw pizza doughs contain E.Coli, which can cause food poisoning.
And if you do happen to eat a cooked pizza that is of a bad dough, the chances are that you will notice feeling nausea, feel like vomiting, have stomach cramps, and have diarrhea within the first 72 hours.
Worst case scenario, you might even have a fever that will last for a good amount of time. Also, having joint aches, feeling like the throat and the mouth is dry is the less common symptoms that you might notice after eating a pizza cooked with a bad dough.
How to Enhance the Shelf Life of Pizza Dough?
There are a couple of things that you can do if you want to elongate the shelf life of the pizza dough. They are as follows:
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Use Basic Ingredients
If you do want to ensure the longevity of your dough, you need to stick to the basic ingredients when you are preparing it. Yes, it would mean that you will not get the extra flavor that the milk and egg are capable of offering. But you will not risk the overall shelf life of the mixture.
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Store it Properly
As we have mentioned earlier, if you leave the dough around at room temperature, it will not turn bad reasonably fast. For that reason, you must store it inside a fridge, which will elongate the shelf life significantly.
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Use Less Amount of Yeast
You need to use less amount of yeast if you plan to store the dough for a considerably long time. The more yeast that you are going to put in the mixture, the faster the fermentation process is going to take place. And the faster the fermentation takes place, the faster it is going to overproof.
And even though over-proofing does not mean that the dough has gone bad, you will not have that much of a good pizza-eating experience when you use it for cooking pizza.
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Final Words
So, does pizza dough go bad? In short, it does go bad.
However, if you store it properly, you can substantially slow down the process and keep it good for a long time. And now that you are fully aware of the topic, we hope you will not get yourself ill for having bad pizza dough.