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?