Homemade pizza! Yum!

Homemade apple pie! Yum!

Leftovers for tomorrow!

YUM!

Here’s the recipe for Saturday’s dinner (and today’s leftovers): Pizza!

2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 cup warm (100 F) water
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
1/4 cup potato flour
1/4 – 1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 to 4 cups bread flour
cornmeal, for dusting

475 F

Proof the yeast in the warm water. Add olive oil, honey, salt, potato flour, and wheat flour. Mix ingredients together with paddle of mixer, and then let dough slurry rest for ~30 minutes. Switch to dough hook, and add bread flour until you have a nice soft dough.

Place dough in a oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm place for ~60 minutes.

Divide dough into two parts. Roll out each ball into a disc ~12 inches in diameter. Cover with plastic wrap and place out of the way while you prepare your toppings (~30 to 45 minute rise).

Pre-heat pizza stone in oven to 475 F for at least 15. Roll out dough to desired size. Get square of parchment square the size of your dough. Sprinkle parchment with cornmeal. Place rolled dough on cornmeal. Top with desired toppings. Use peel or flat cookie sheets without sides to transfer pizza (on parchment!) from counter to pizza stone. Bake ~ 15 minutes.

Slide pizza and parchment onto cookie sheet or other large flat device to remove from oven. Place second pizza in the oven. Allow pizza to rest for a few minutes before cutting.

Eat.

Don’t forget to pull second pizza out of oven.

NOTES:

Most times are approximate, depending upon how far you are into your book when the timer dings.

The parchment paper makes it really easy to move the pizza from counter to stone and back out of the oven; and between the parchment and the cornmeal, I’m now getting nice crisp crust on the bottom.

Alternately, for a thick crust, you can roll out to dough, to the correct size, rise ~30 minutes then carefully top so as not to disturb the dough (The book recommends allowing the made pizza to rise for 30 minutes. This seems foolhardy to me) then bake.

The dough can be refrigerated or frozen in a 6 inch disc before the second rise. But I usually just make two pizzas and then have one for leftovers.

And I got a good one today… Potato Flour from Anne!

Now I can try Jim’s pizza crust recipe and see if it compares to the one I’ve been using. Hopefully next weekend. (Michael’s in Canton OH today, and then tomorrow we’ll be in MD for the viewing.) I’ll try to remember to take pictures–and hope everything turns out well!

But really, the best part was seeing an unexpected package. That truly made my day!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

And not just any baking mind you, but yeasty baking.

There’s been a lot of talk around these parts about pizza. And after reading Jim‘s post about different types of pizza crust, I decided that I needed to make pizza for dinner.

As I was unable to find Jim’s recommended potato flour, I decided to delve into my new cookbook, A Passion for Baking (Christmas gift from my Aunt & Uncle) and see if it had a good recipe for pizza dough. “The World’s Best Pizza Dough” recipe caught my eye, so I decided to try it. Instead of Jim’s potato flour, it called for Semolina flour OR cornmeal, and as I HAVE cornmeal, that made it a win.

The interesting thing this recipe called for was to roll out the dough after the first rise, add the toppings, and then have a second rise. Since I use a pizza stone, I wasn’t sure how well that was going to work, so I compromised. I rolled out the dough after the second rise, and then placed it on a sheet of parchment paper, where I let the dough rise again. Then when I went to bake the pizza, I slid parchment paper and all onto the hot stone, and everything was perfect.

How did it turn out? Well, Grandmom raved about the pizza through dinner, and then came back in later and said it was the best pizza I’d made and the best she’d had. So, I’d say that’s a win.

And since I had already made a mess, while the pizza dough was on it’s first rise, I started dough fr sweet rolls. I’ve used several different recipes for sweet rolls over the year, but the one I like best makes way too many at once, and even a half recipe is ridiculous, so I decided to use the dough recipe from the The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, and improvise the filling on the fly.

So we just got finished rolling out the dough (despite the long rise, the dough was still difficult to roll, and I took a couple short breaks to let the dough relax while rolling it out. (Also, if you care about such things, I adore my French rolling pin I never thought the kind of rolling pin would make a difference, but this is the best pin I’ve ever used, and makes even pie crusts a joy to make.)

Anyway, sugar/cinnamon/butter (with a dash of nutmeg) and crasins and walnuts (except on Grandmom’s portion) were spread onto the dough, then the dough was rolled and sliced, and now one pan is in the fridge to bake for breakfast tomorrow morning, and the other is in the freezer for some other morning.

Now I get to look out the window at the snow, enjoy the heat from the wood stove in the basemnt, curl up with a book, and know I’ve got breakfast for tomorrow.

How awesome a Saturday is that?