Some of the Best Things in Life are Easy!

I think I have run into a slight problem. You see, I love homemade bread, as I have mentioned here many times (maybe too many), and whenever I have some in the house I tend to eat more than I should.

The good thing is that it tends to take so much time out of the day that I can only make it once or twice a month, so those extra calories don’t make it into my system that often.

The problem, is that I have run into a solution to that. That sentence just sounds wrong, but anyways, I managed to get my hands on a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois.

This bread is amazing. Not only is it just as easy as it sounds, but the depth of flavor is incredible. This means that I can have fresh bread any day I want. Isn’t that horrible?

This also means that all of you out there who have been hesitant to try making bread can take that leap and be assured you’ll have great bread without even trying! Don’t be afraid of the length of the recipe. Even though I edited it down a lot it’s still a bit wordy, but the actual process isn’t any more difficult than making cookies

Boule (Artisan Free-Form Loaf)
Source: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
6  1/2 cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose flour

Mixing and Storing the Dough:

Warm the water slightly: It should feel just a little warmer than body temperature, about 100 F. Warm water will rise the dough to the right point for storage in about 2 hours.  Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic food container. Don’t worry about getting it all to dissolve.

Mix in the flour but do not knead. Add all of the flour at once by gently scooping up flour, then sweeping the top level with a knife or spatula; don’t press down into the flour as you scoop or you’ll throw off the measurement by compressing. Mix with a wooden spoon until the mixture is uniform. If you’re hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach in with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don’t knead! It isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is done in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container.

Cover with a lid (not airtight). Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flattens on the top), approximately 2 hours, depending on the room’s temperature and the initial water temperature. Longer rising times, up to about 5 hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and is easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours) before shaping a loaf.

On Baking Day:

Sprinkle the surface of your refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough*, using a serrated knife.

Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. The entire process should take no longer than 30 to 60 seconds.

Place the shaped ball on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Allow the loaf to rest on the peel for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered during the rest period). Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking.

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450F.

Dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour. Slash the top as desired, about 1/4-inch-deep.

After a 20-minute preheat, you’re ready to bake, even though your oven thermometer won’t yet be up to full temperature. Place the loaf on the sheet in the oven. Quickly but carefully through ice cubes in the oven and close the oven door to trap the steam. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and a thermometer inserted inside reads 200F.

Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire rack, for best flavor, texture, and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled. Enjoy!

You can store the remaining dough in your refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days. You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. Cut off and shape more loaves as you need them. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

*The recipe states that you can have four loaves with this bread, but with two of us 1/4 of that dough really wasn’t enough. I think 1/2 is really more appropriate. And the longer you leave the dough, the more the flavor will develop, just make sure you don’t leave it past 10-14 days or it just won’t be as good.

Fun with More Amano

One of the fun things about being a food blogger is the occasional giveaways. Some people out there are very generous.

Blake, of BlakeMakes happens to be one of the people, and earlier this year he had a giveaway of one of my favorite things. Chocolate! It’s hard enough to resist chocolate on it’s own, and even harder to resist it when it’s free!

And this wasn’t just any chocolate, it was Amano chocolate! The same thing I got from the last Blake Make’s giveaway that I participated in, but different. I have now tried four different types of chocolate from these people, and each and every one was unique, and incredible. I really can’t describe how great this chocolate is, but it’s obvious they take a lot of care to make it right.

For example, Jambra, the chocolate I received in this giveaway … well, I don’t want to sound like one of their spokes people, but they work hard to pick the best ingredients so their chocolate is unique and well worth every penny.

It took a while to pick the right recipe for this chocolate and decided to go with the chocolate chip brioche recipe in new cookbook I got for christmas. I have never made brioche before, and while this had a touch too much butter, and not nearly enough chocolate it was really great.

Chocolate Chip Brioche
Source: The Great Book of Chocolate

1/2 oz instant yeast
1/3 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons superfine sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 1/3 cups butter, softened
2 oz chocolate
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten with 1 teaspoon of milk, to glaze

Place the yeast, milk, sugar and salt in a small bowl and stir gently. Set aside 10 minutes.

Place the flour in a large bowl and pour in the yeast mixture. Beating slowly, gradually add the eggs to form a soft dough.

Turn out onto your work surface and knead until soft and smooth, about 5 minutes. Add the butter a little at a time. Continue until all the butter has been added, then knead for 5 more minutes.

Add the chocolate and knead until well combined with the dough.

Cover the bowl with a clean cloth and leave in a warm place until it has doubled in volume, about 90 minutes. Gently remove the risen dough from the bowl and on a floured work surface, flipping the dough over with your fingers.

Place on a tray and refrigerate for up to 2 hours. Grease 16 small brioche molds with melted butter.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Weigh off sixteen 1-ounce pieces of dough for the base of the brioches and sixteen 1/3 ounce pieces for the tops.

Shape the larger pieces of dough into tight balls and place in the bottoms of the molds. Shape the smaller pieces of dough into tear-drop shapes. Using your finger, make a hole in the larger balls and poke the teardrop into the holes.

Using a pastry brush, lightly glaze with the egg mixture. Cover with a cloth and set aside in a warm place to double in volume, about 30 minutes. Brush with the glaze again.

Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

I’ve posted the recipe as written, however we ran into a few issues, so these are my notes:

It was a little too buttery, so you might want to use a little less, however, lots of butter makes it flaky, so don’t take out too much if you do adjust it.

I also don’t believe the recipe was nearly chocolaty enough, nor were they sweet enough. I would suggest adding more chocolate (I think we added twice as much as was called for and it still wasn’t enough) adding some cocoa powder, and maybe adjusting the sugar level.

We also had a problem with the time. 10 minutes wasn’t nearly enough, and more time made them too dark. The second batch we baked covered with foil for about 20 minutes, then uncovered for 10, and we tested the inside temperature to make sure that it was 200F, to assure that they were completely baked.

Don’t let any of this prevent you from trying them, though. They were really fun to make and well worth the time. I really wish we had used a tried and true recipe, to do this incredible chocolate some justice, but it was a fun challenge and awesome chocolate.

A Challah to Remember

One of the fun things of being a girl is dreaming of the man that might show up in your life one day. Though reality is not even remotely close, you can have an interesting journey through your imagination with that dark, daring stranger that will sweep you off your feet, take you from your dull life to strange and interesting new worlds or…as in the “story” I apparently wrote when I was very, very young…rescue the princess from the evil ogre holding her hostage.

Every girls dream is different is some way, and the man we are each ultimately the happiest with is completely different from the man that would make our best friends happy. But along that very long and often trecheours road to happiness I think all women at one point will take a fantasy detour to dream about being with a man with a sexy accent. Irish, Italian, Austrialian (*insert sexy purring noise*). I honestly don’t know what it is, but the idea of someone so different and foreign can certainly make me melt like chocolate on a hot stove.

The wonderful man currently in my life is not really the sexy-foreign-accent type, though definitely sexy in his own way. He was, however, raised Jewish, and that makes for some fun conversations. Strange, made up sounding words like meshuggener and schmatte will sneak their way into every day conversations. People who kvetch and schlimazels are individuals to suddenly watch out for. And enough with the chicken soup already!

One of the really yummy extras that came with my man (does anyone else think that almost makes him sound like one of those infomercial gadgets with all the cheesy extras? oops!) Anyways, one of the yummy extras that came with this man is Challah bread. Or “Chally.”

This was my first attempt at Chally, and while it wasn’t quite right, like every recipe from The Fresh Loaf, it was beautiful and delicious.

Challah Bread
Slightly adapted from: The Fresh Loaf

2 eggs
1 1/2 cups room-temperature water
1/4 cup Olive Oil
2 tbl. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 tsp instant yeast

Beat the eggs with about a tablespoon of the water. Put aside approximately 1/4 a cup for the egg wash and mix the remaining egg with the rest of the water.

Mix the 2 1/2 cups bread flour with the yeast and add in approximately half of the water/egg mixture. It should make a very pasty mixture. Allow to set for 20 to 30 minutes or until doubled in size. 

Mix in the remaining egg/water mixture, olive oil, sugar and salt, then gradually work in the remaining flour. Place in a well greased bowl, cover and let rise for an hour or until doubled in size.

Remove from bowl, degas, and then cover and let it rise again. Preheat the oven at 400F.

Degas the dough again a let rest 15 minutes. Cut into three equal ropes sections and roll out gently to about 14 inches. Braid carefully, tucking the ends under and brush with egg wash. Let rise about 1 hour.

Brush again with egg wash. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, turn loaf in the oven and turn the temperature to 350F and finish baking for approximately 30 more minutes or until golden brown and a thermometer inserted inside reads 200F. Allow to cool completely. Enjoy

I am a little crazy, and like the three different recipes I tried to find the perfect recipe for potato bread, I have at least two more I will try to find to perfect the Challah, but this one really is awesome and well worth trying.

Giving Thanks With Bread

Sometimes it’s really hard to remember what this life actually offers that you can be thankful for. There are so many bad things in this world these days that it’s getting harder and harder to listen to the news without getting depressed. Hell, it’s getting harder to simply look at the grocery receipt without getting depressed but there are still good things out there. I personally have been lucky this year and have a few new things in my life to really be happy about but if there is nothing else, (ignoring the receipt of course) food is definitely something we can all celebrate this Thanksgiving. That is what this holiday revolves around, isn’t it?

As bread in particular has always managed to make me happy I thought this would be the perfect thing to share with everyone this Thanksgiving. It is definitely my favorite of all of the three recipes and was a hit for our big dinner.

Now, I know that I have already done not just one, but two different recipes for potato bread this year, but not only is potato bread my favorite, it also happens to be the type bread my family tends to crave for this holiday. I haven’t tried this particular recipe myself before now but I have heard many good things about it, and just couldn’t wait any longer to share.

Tender Potato Bread
Slightly adapted from: Culinary Concoctions by Peabody
A Daring Bakers Recipe

8-16 ounces of potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks.
4 cups water, reserve cooking water
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
6 ½ cups to 8 ½ cups bread flour
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour

Put the potatoes and 4 cups water in a sauce pan and bring to boil. Add 1 teaspoon salt and cook until the potatoes are very tender.

Drain the potatoes, SAVE THE POTATO WATER, and mash the potatoes well. We used a potato ricer but if you don’t have something like that it works best to mash the potatoes in the water, just make sure you measure out the water as directed below first!

Measure out 3 cups of the reserved potato water. Add extra water if needed. Place the water and mashed potatoes in the bowl you plan to mix the bread dough in. Let cool to lukewarm (70-80F) – stir well before testing the temperature – it should feel barely warm to your hand. You should be able to submerge you hand in the mix and not be uncomfortable.

Add yeast to 2 cups bread flour and whisk. Add to the cooled mashed potatoes and water and mix well. Allow to rest/sit 5 minutes.

Sprinkle in the remaining salt and the softened butter; mix well. Add the 1 cup all-purpose flour, stir briefly.

Add 2 cups of the bread flour and mix until all the flour has been incorporated. Continue adding more of the remaining flour as needed until you can handle it.

Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes, incorporating flour as needed to prevent sticking. The dough will be very sticky to begin with, but as it takes up more flour from the kneading surface, it will become easier to handle. The kneaded dough will still be very soft. Place the dough in a large clean bowl or your rising container of choice, cover with plastic wrap or lid, and let rise about 2 hours or until doubled in volume.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead gently several minutes. It will be moist and a little sticky.

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Divide the dough into 2 equal portions, then divide each of those into thirds. Roll each segment into a rope, about 1/2 thick. Place three of the ropes on a sheet of parchment paper and braid lightly, being careful not to stretch. Pinch and tuck each end under, then repeat with the other loaf. Cover and let rise another 35-45 minutes or so, until doubled.

Lightly dust the top of each braid with a little flour and immediately transfer the loaves to a baking sheet and carefully place in the oven. Bake the loaves for 10 minutes, turn the oven down to 375F and bake for approximately 40 more minutes or until golden brown and a thermometer inserted inside reads 200F.

Transfer to a rack and let cool at least 10 minutes before serving.

As this was Thanksgiving, I thought a easily rip-able braid would be more appropriate than a slice-able loaf, but you can serve this anyway you want. As always, just have fun with it!

Let’s Do the Twist

There are certain snacks that always seem to make people happy. Most of them are as happy-inducing because they have much sugar on top (hey, if a spoonful of sugar can make medicine better, why shouldn’t a cupful make everything else better? *g*)

This, however, is actually one of those snacks that is actually reasonably healthy…assuming you don’t over-do the salt and you’re not one of those weird anti-carb people…..but if you were anti carb you probably wouldn’t be reading this

These pretzles are not even remotely as good as those you can get in the city. But I don’t think it’s possible to make anything that good at home. But as soothing as it is to make any type of bread, and as fun as snacks like this tend to be, it’s another one of those I just couldn’t resist.

Soft Pretzels
Source: The Fresh Loaf

1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 tablespoon malt powder or brown sugar
2-3 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup warm milk

Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until it forms a ball. Start with 2 cups of the flour and mix it together until it forms something like a thick batter, then add more flour a handful at a time until it’ll form a nice ball that you can knead by hand.

Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes until it begins to get smooth and satiny. Return the ball of dough to a clean, greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and set it aside to rise until it has doubled in size, approximately an hour.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Degas the dough gently then cut into 6 pieces. Roll each one into a short log, cover with a towel, and let the dough relax for 5 to 10 minutes. After it has relaxed you should be able to roll it out and stretch again fairly easily.

Let them relax again and then roll and stretch a third time until they are long and thin (about 15 inches long and about as big around as your index finger). They’ll nearly double in width while baking, so you should roll them out very thin.

To shape the pretzels, place a rope of dough on the work surface in front of you. Take each end in a hand, loop the dough away from you, and bring the ends back toward you, crossing them about an inch above the rope. Apply a little bit of pressure to make the loops stick together, but not too much because you don’t want then to flatten out.

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Dunk each of the pretzels into the boiling water for 5 seconds, then place them onto a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt or other toppings.

Place the baking sheet into the oven and bake about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and eat immediately. Enjoy.

Taste & Create XI: Sugar and Spice…

For a while now, a friend of mine has been unwittingly torturing me with his many tales of waffles for breakfast. I have been a good girl, and have resisted so far (it’s more about resisting the syrup that must go on those waffles than the waffles themselves) but when I saw that one of the recipes my partner, Magpie from je le vous dirais had on her blog was for a Dutch Baby, I knew I had to finally break down.

Now, I have never had a Dutch Baby before, but from what I have heard it is much like pancakes, so I went for it, and I am glad I did cause even if I messed something up, it was well worth it.

Dutch Baby
Source: je le vous dirais

1/2 tablespoon butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the over to 400F. Please empty glass pie plate in oven to preheat.

Mix the eggs, milk, flour, cinnamon and salt in a bowl.

Take the pie plate out of the oven and add the butter. Pour the batter on top and sprinkle with additional cinnamon and/or sugar.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned. Cut into wedges and devour immediately with topping of choice. Enjoy.

This recipe called for way too much better, so I adjusted the numbers for the recipe here. If you try it yourself and it doesn’t look like it’ll be enough to grease the pan, just add a touch more.

This recipe was very tasty, and well worth breaking down….let’s just hope that now i have syrup in the house again I will be able to continue resisting it’s call

The Finer Things in Life

One of the things about being an adult, is that time seems to move so much faster than it did when we were kids. When we’re young, we spend our days imagining the future. Our biggest concern is avoiding the bully at school. We count the days until summer, then spend every moment we possibly can outside, enjoying the sun, and air, the sand at the beach, the trees we can climb…and those we can’t. All the little things that make our lives beautiful. We can’t wait until we grow up and can enjoy everything that’s held back by the adults in our lives.

Then once we become adults, other concerns crowd our minds. We think about bills, our health and that of our loved ones, and taxes. We spend our days, locked in an office, many of us without even a window. We have to force ourselves to eat well, rather than just what we manage to fit in. We crowd every hour of the day we can with the things we feel we have to get done, counting the minutes until we can go to bed. Even our weekends tend to be crowded with errands. And if you’re like me, you even feel guilty for taking a vacation or a single day off.

Thankfully, though we have mostly lost touch with the carefree children we once were, we can still force our selves to spend time on some of the finer things life has to offer. Like the sounds and smells of a summer storm, the taste of good chocolate or wine. Or both.

And of course, the feeling of a good dough in your hands, the smell of it baking and the taste of that first piece. I know not many of you enjoy making bread, and it has unfortunately become one of the things far too many people try to avoid these days, but I realized the other day that it had been way too long since I have made myself any bread, and it was a situation I personally had to remedy.

Crispy Loaf
Slightly adapted from: The Joy Kitchen

2 teaspoons instant yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water
4 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons shortening
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites

Mix 2 1/2 cups flour, the yeast, shortening, sugar and water in a bowl, then mix in the salt.

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, the fold into the dough. Gradually mix in the remaining flour until the dough is soft but no longer sticky.

Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to a greased bowl, grease the top of the dough and cover with saran wrap. Allow to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until doubled.

Punch down the dough, knead it briefly then let rise again until doubled. Repeat once more, then shape into a loaf. Allow to rise until doubled.

Preheat the oven to 425F. Transfer the loaf to a parchment covered baking sheet, then place in the oven and immediately throw in some ice to steam.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes, turning once half way through. Loaf should register about 200F on a thermometer inserted in. Allow to cool completely before cutting. Enjoy

This loaf was better tasting than anything I could buy, and well worth the time for that smell alone.

I hope you’ll try this, or something else that you’ve been putting off for lack of time. It’s well worth it to do one little thing like this, to make time for yourself and indulge a little.

Exploding With Flavor

I don’t know how many of you do a lot of your shopping online, but I am one of those people that gets rather obsessed with it (not food and toiletries of course, but other stuffs.) I actually do it so often that I have caught myself thinking in terms of online shopping for certain things that might actually be better in person.

My only real complaint with online shopping is the newsletters. Every single store now has their own newsletter that they throw out there. I am sorry, just because I happened to get a friend something from your store two years ago does not mean I want your spam! (Especially considering it does not help me control my spending when I constantly get the godiva newsletters).

Anyways, there are a few that will occasionally catch my eye and a few weeks ago the one from King Arthur  did just that. The title said “Crusty Cheese Bread Recipe…” Do you blame me for jumping to attention? *g* They even had a video showing how to make it! So this was something I knew I had to try and what better time than as the finale for my cheesy memorial day weekend?

Molten Cheesy Bread
Source: King Arthur Flour

Starter
1 1/4 cups (5 1/4 ounces) Bread Flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 cup (4 ounces) cool water

Dough
all of the starter
9 ounces to 10 ounces lukewarm water
1 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups (14 3/4 ounces) Bread Flour
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast

Filling
2 1/2 cups (10 ounces) grated Gruyère cheese, or the cheese of your choice

To make the starter: Mix the 1 1/4 cups flour, salt, yeast, and 1/2 cup water in a medium-sized bowl. Mix till well combined. Cover and let rest overnight at room temperature.

To make the dough: Combine the risen starter with the water, salt, flour, and yeast. Knead to make a smooth dough. Place it in a lightly greased bowl, cover, and let it rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, till it’s nearly doubled in bulk.

Gently deflate the dough, and pat and stretch it into a 3/4”-thick rectangle, about 9” x 12”. Sprinkle with the grated cheese. Starting with a long side, roll it into a log, pinching the seam to seal. Place the log, seam-side down, on a lightly floured or lightly oiled surface. Cover it and let it rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, till it’s puffy though not doubled in bulk. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.

Gently cut the log into four crosswise slices. Place them on two lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheets, cut side up. Spread them open a bit to more fully expose the cheese. Immediately place them in the preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the loaves are a very deep golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack. Enjoy!

Breadchick and the other ladies from the Great Cinnabon Knockoff Challenge also made this recently, so you should definitely check out their results

A Slice is Not Enough

All of us get kinda sucky, but very necessary jobs when we’re in high school. It is the time when parents stop paying for everything (and you stop wanting to tell them what you’re actually buying) so the need for some sort of cash flow must interrupt our social lives. For me that interruption came in the form of pizza.

The job wasn’t horrible (though I did gain a lot of weight from it *g*) but besides giving me money, it also ended up giving me the desire to figure out how to make the perfect pizza at home, and living in New York just raised the bar that much higher.

I have a decent-but-not great recipe that I have been using for a while for the dough but for some reason I could never get it just right, and of course it always took forever to cook.

Well, I was doing my random blog surfing one day and happened upon this recipe on 101 Cookbooks that sounded awesome and soon realized that I had to try it….and I had to get a baking stone. I now have a brand new baking stone, and can now try it! Horray!

If you decide to try this yourself please note you do need to start the day before you actually want it. And as any pizza dough you can freeze it for later.

Napoletana Pizza Dough
Slightly adapted from: 101 Cookbooks

4 1/2 cups (20.25 ounces) bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, ice cold (40°F)
Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

1. Stir together the flour, salt, and instant yeast in a 4-quart bowl. With a large metal spoon, stir in the oil and the cold water until the flour is all absorbed. If you are mixing by hand, repeatedly dip one of your hands or the metal spoon into cold water and use it, to work the dough vigorously into a smooth mass while rotating the bowl in a circular motion with the other hand. Reverse the circular motion a few times to develop the gluten further. Do this until the dough is smooth. The finished dough will be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50 to 55F.

2. Sprinkle flour on your work surface and transfer the dough. Prepare a sheet pan by lining it with baking parchment and misting the parchment with spray oil (or lightly oil the parchment). Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces. You can dip the scraper into the water between cuts to keep the dough from sticking to it. Sprinkle flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Lift each piece and gently round it into a ball. Add more flour if the dough sticks to your hands. Transfer the dough balls to the sheet pan, mist the dough generously with spray oil and slip the pan into a plastic bag.

3. Put the pan into the refrigerator overnight to rest the dough.

4. On the day you plan to make the pizza, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before making the pizza. Dust the counter with flour. Place the dough balls on top of the floured counter and sprinkle them with flour; dust your hands with flour. Gently press the dough into flat disks about 1/2 inch thick and 5 inches in diameter. Sprinkle the dough with flour, mist it with spray oil, and cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap or a food-grade plastic bag. Let rest for 2 hours.

5. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone in the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible. If you do not have a baking stone, you can use the back of a sheet pan, but do not preheat the pan.

6. Generously dust a peel or the back of a sheet pan with semolina flour or cornmeal. Make the pizzas one at a time. Cover your hands with flour including the backs of your hands and knuckles, and lift 1 piece of dough carefully. Very gently lay the dough across your fists and carefully stretch it by bouncing the dough in a circular motion on your hands, carefully giving it a little stretch with each bounce. If it begins to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue shaping it. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss. If you have trouble tossing the dough, or if the dough keeps springing back, let it rest for 5 to 20 minutes so the gluten can relax, and try again. You can also resort to using a rolling pin, though this isn’t as effective as the toss method. I couldn’t toss it but I let it hang and kept rotating the dough, letting gravity stretch it out.

7. When the dough is stretched out to your satisfaction (about 9 to 12 inches in diameter), lay it on the peel or pan, making sure there is enough semolina flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide (I placed it on a sheet of parchment paper). Lightly top it with sauce and then with your other toppings.

8. Slide the topped pizza onto the stone (or bake directly on the sheet pan) and close the door. Wait 2 minutes, then take a peek. If it needs to be rotated 180 degrees for even baking, do so. The pizza should take about 5 to 8 minutes to bake.

9. Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer to a cutting board. Wait 3 to 5 minutes before slicing and serving. Enjoy.

I hope you try this yourself sometime cause it’s really great an awesome recipe. I have never made a dough that was as soft and pliable. It is ridiculously easy to shape, and I have never made a tastier pizza at home, and I’ve even had worse at a restaurant (though not in NY, of course). I plan to indulge in a lot of cheesy recipes this weekend so I hope you’ll sick around for them. It should be much fun for all

Taste & Create IX: Cute Enough to Eat

This month’s T&C was so much fun. My partner, Stefani from Cupcake Project seems to be a lot like me, and her incredible blog has more cupcakes than you can imagine. She’s trying to find the perfect cupcakes for a friend’s wedding, which is actually the second one she’s done this for….so for me, rather than just one or two recipes I was interested in, there were like 6 different recipes that peaked my interest (at least 2 of which I will definitely be trying later). Anyways, when I found this one I knew I had to try it. It was just so cute!

All together now…AWWWWWWWWWW

Can you blame me for trying this one?

Granted, she had some problems with it. This was actually her second time trying donut cupcakes (doughcakes? cupnuts?…..god that sounds dirty! lol we’ll just stick with donut cupcakes) but she hadn’t had much luck with yeast in general in the past and as you all know…I have lots of fun with yeast so I thought it was worth a try

Donut Cupcakes
Adapted from: Cupcake Project

1 2/3 cup warm milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
5 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/4 oz instant yeast
5 teaspoons cocoa powder

Whisk together the egg, milk, butter, and vanilla. Stir in the yeast, sugar and cocoa powder, then slowly add in the flour until you have a slightly sticky dough. You might not use all of the flour but if you do and it’s still too sticky you can add a little more flour. Move the dough to your work surface and knead it until it is nice and elastic. You can work in more flour as you knead if it is sticking to the counter or a little more milk if it’s dry. Put your dough ball into a buttered bowl. Cover and let sit for an hour or until it doubles in size.

Roll dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Use cookie cutters, a glass or whatever you have to cut doughnuts using something much smaller to cut the holes. Put doughnuts in cupcake wrappers in cupcake tins. Cover with a damp towel and let rise for another hour until doubled again. Preheat oven to 350F.

I was out of corn syrup when I thought I still had some left (I never run out of the stuff so I probably tossed it during my last cleaning spree) so instead of using her icing recipe I just used 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon cocoa liqueur and about 5 tablespoons water. Just mix it up in a small bowl, adding more water as needed to make it spreadable. Cover with saran wrap until you’re ready to use it.

Place the pan in oven and bake for 5 or 6 minutes, turn pan and bake for another 5 minutes until lightly browned. Remove from oven and carefully remove from cupcake pan, placing on a wire rack.

With an offset spatula, spread icing over the donut cupcakes while they are still warm. Decorate with sprinkles. Wanna know the best part? You can devour them while they’re still warm. Enjoy, and try not to eat all of them in one sitting  

This recipe gave me 48 of these donut cupcakes, with a ton of dough left over, so instead of making more I had a little fun with the left-over dough.