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I made some pizza dough and let the individual dough balls rise in the fridge for a day. The following day I took them out of the fridge so they could come up to room temperature so the dough would be easier to handle when I make the pizzas.
Problem is when it was at room temperature some massive bubbles (could probably fit a tennis ball in them) emerged from the doughballs.
Is this normal or have I done something wrong? How should I deal with these bubbles, do I pop them or just let them be?
A longer rise can certainly yield large bubbles, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Popping them before stretching works just fine, and a little more force working near where the bubble was will keep the spot together when it cooks.
To much kneading will make the dough tough, but if it has been in the refrigerator all day, then a little more/extra won't hurt anything.
If those bubbles appear in only one or two dough balls, you can simply pop them and it's going to be ok. If most of the dough balls have this problem, I would knead the dough once more.
Irregular rising is a sign that there isn't enough gluten in the dough. The gluten would normally trap the gas produced by the yeast in small bubbles evenly throughout the dough. If there's not enough gluten, the small bubbles split the dough and combine into big bubbles. Rolling the dough out then pops most of the bubbles, leaving you with a flat and hard pizza base.
On the other hand, overworking the dough produces too much gluten, which leads to a chewy, sometimes gummy-like pizza base. The true art of pizza making is finding the golden spot between overworking the dough and not working it enough.
