Went and finally bought a pizza peel, so this was the first night I cooked things properly on a stone. The results were mostly positive, even taking into account how I set off the smoke detector.
Foreground - ham, grilled (well, griddled) pineapple, and a small number of black beans I had left over.
Background - chicken, bacon, and ham.
Vegetable pizza - red and yellow bell peppers and black beans. First pizza in, so it's a little darker.
Ham, grilled pineapple, and banana peppers.
Same as before, but this time Casey tracked down some food grade lye on the internet. It makes a huge difference.
Unfortunately, I've only got the one left to take pictures of since the others have all been eaten already.
Check these out.
Dough:
1 package (2 1/2 teaspoon) active dry yeast or 2 teaspoons instant yeast
3/4 cup water
3 1/2 cup all-purpose unbleached flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons powdered milk
4 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
6 tablespoons butter, softened
Filling:
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup raisins
Glaze:
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Mix all the dry ingredients except for the yeast.
2. Add the yeast, water, and eggs and mix until combined.
3. Mix or knead in the softened butter, until it forms a smooth, satiny dough. It will be sticky.
4. Place it in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise until double in volume. This will be roughly 1 to 1.5 hours.
5. Once it's doubled, punch the dough down, cover it back up, and stick it in the fridge overnight.
6. The next day divide the dough into two halves. Working quickly while it's still cold, roll each half out into a roughly 8" x 10" rectangle. Brush this with an egg wash made from whisking together one whole egg and 1 tablespoon of milk, then spread the filling out over it.
7. Roll the sheet up into a log, then slice into 8 discs. Place each disc on a greased baking sheet and press it flat with your hand, like this:
8. Repeat with the other half of the dough, then brush them all with more of the egg wash. Leave them to rise for 45 minutes to an hour, or until they're "puffy".
9. Preheat the oven to 385º.
10. Bake the rolls for 15-17 minutes, until golden brown. Immediately brush with the glaze once when they come out of the oven.
Once they cool the final product should look something like this:
11. Eat them, which looks something like this:
So this time I made pretzels. I actually made a batch last night, but I didn't get any photos. Mostly traditional, though those two in the foreground are sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar instead of salt.
2-3 cups flour, depending on how well it absorbs everything
1 tablespoon malt powder OR brown sugar (I used sugar because I don't have any malt powder)
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm milk
1. Mix it all together until it forms a dough that starts to pull away from the bowl.
2. Knead it on a floured surface for 5-10 minutes until you have a smooth dough ball.
3. I've been putting it back in a greased bowl and letting it rise for an hour at this point but there's some debate as to how necessary that is.
4. Punch the dough down if you let it rise, then divide it into around six pieces.
5. Roll those pieces into long, thin ropes.
6. Shape them how you want. Mine were supposed to be traditional pretzel shaped but some of them separated a little during the boiling.
7. Boil them briefly in a mixture of water and baking soda. Traditionally they're boiled in water and food grade lye but I'm using baking soda as a more convenient (though less effective) substitute. I'm still playing with boiling time and the exact amount of baking soda, but somewhere around 4 tablespoons of baking soda and a minute or so of boiling will get you pretzels like mine.
8. Place the pretzels on a greased or lined baking sheet, liberally season, then bake in the oven at 425º for around 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
9. Cool and eat.
This is the unexpectedly large loaf of brioche I made for Breakfast Party last week. It turned out pretty good.
This is a picture Jeremy took of it served as it was intended, sliced and covered in jam. If I hadn't decided on doing this the night before I might have tried to make french toast with it instead, but oh well.
This was my contribution to the Breakfast Party.
I used this recipe here but made a few adjustments. I used pear instead of apple, and where the recipe calls for rolling the strudel up before baking, I kept it flat and then cut it down to size once it was done cooking.
For the Filling:
¼ cup butter
2 lbs pear, peeled and diced
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup raisins
¼ tsp cinnamon
12 oz Havarti cheese with dill or caraway seeds, cut into ½ inch cubes
Dash pepper
2 Tbsp butter
2 leeks, cleaned well and sliced in rounds
2 Tbsp shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, cleaned well and chopped
¼ cup butter
2 lbs pear, peeled and diced
⅓ cup sugar
⅓ cup raisins
¼ tsp cinnamon
12 oz Havarti cheese with dill or caraway seeds, cut into ½ inch cubes
Dash pepper
2 Tbsp butter
2 leeks, cleaned well and sliced in rounds
2 Tbsp shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 Tbsp fresh parsley, cleaned well and chopped
For the Pastry:
½ pound phyllo dough
½ cup melted butter (for painting phyllo dough)
Large mixing bowl
Large sauté pan
Pastry brush - medium size
9 x 13” glass pan, greased (a greased baking sheet can be substituted)
Pre-heat oven to 350°F.
Sauté pears in ¼ cup butter, add sugar, raisins, cinnamon and stir until well blended.
Increase heat and stir until juices evaporate then, transfer to bowl.
Sauté leeks, shallots and garlic, add parsley, stir well.
Add mixture to bowl with pear mixture and then, add cubes of cheese.
Combine well.
Wrap in phyllo by layering a piece of phyllo pastry on baking sheet or in a 9 x 13” pan, use a medium size pastry brush to paint melted butter over phyllo sheet and repeat until you have layered 10 or so sheets.
Add filling to center of pastry and wrap as a package, finish by painting butter on top and sides.
Bake at 350°F for 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool to set on baking rack cutting into squares to serve.
I found that using phyllo dough is a bit tricky. It is important that it has at least 24 hours to thaw before working with it otherwise it will stick together and tear to tiny bits.
Also the cooking time is fairly precise. If you pull it out too soon, it will stay soggy from all the butter, but if you let it go too long, the phyllo dough will get brown and be too dry and taste burnt.
So that is what I made. It was good.
