I was tempted to make my thin-crust pizza but decided to stick with the sourdough pan pizza. We have no ground turkey, and the store here does not sell a kind we like, if they even have it, which they usually do not. So, I'm going to use Canadian bacon. I made the tomato sauce today. I'll have mushrooms on it, mozzarella, and Parmesan. I plan to put black olives and green onion on my half.
I'm debating if I want to get adventurous and try a completely sourdough crust (no yeast) with an overnight levain and a long rise the next day.
Hy Vee had SAF Blue (IDY) in a 1 pound package today, they also had Red Star cake yeast in 2 ounce packages in the butter section. I bought one even though it was insanely overpriced ($2.99), just because I've got one or two recipes I'd like to try with cake yeast.
My wife has requested pizza bread in addition to a pizza on Saturday, so I've started a levain so I can make baguette dough in the morning.
I may do one thin crust pizza and one double crust stuffed pizza, something I haven't done in a long time but is REALLY good. I'd need to get some ricotta and some spinach for the bottom layer. And some good pepperoni if I can find it. (The brand we've been using for the past several years has changed its formula and now includes garlic, haven't found another one we liked yet, most are too strong.)
In order to use King Arthur’s Baker’s Bucks before they expired back in April, I added Pompanoosuc Porridge to my cart. On Friday I decided to make some for breakfast and for baking KAF’s Pompanoosuc Porridge Bread. I cooked a half recipe of the porridge that morning but discovered after I took out a cup of it that there was only about ¼ cup for breakfast. For the bread, I made a few changes (didn’t see that one coming, did you?). I replaced 1 cup of water with buttermilk, which I mixed with the porridge. I used the water for proofing the yeast to clean out the bits of syrup still in a jar. I replaced the sugar with 1 ½ Tbs. dark maple syrup. I replaced the butter with 1 ½ Tbs. olive oil. I reduced the salt from 2 ½ tsp. to 1 ½ tsp. and the yeast from 2 tsp. to 1 ¾ tsp. I let the Zo do the kneading. The first rise was 90 minutes (69F in house); the second rise was 50 minutes (70 F). I use the baking bowl I bought from King Arthur, which I grease and sprinkle with farina. I did crosshatch slashing. After 40 minutes (second rack up), the bread was only at 157F. I baked for another 10 minutes to 199F. (The recipe says 190F, but I like my bread a little browner, and my experience is that the bread bowl requires increased baking time. The bread has a center height of 4 ¼ inches, thanks to the bread bowl, but it does have a “belt” around the sides due to the oven spring taking it above the bowl. I look forward to cutting into it tomorrow.
Meant to post this sooner.
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Sams Club had their usual assortment of flours today (all bleached), and they also had Fleischmann's IDY in 2 pound sets, so I got one and now I've got enough yeast to get me through the rest of the year and probably beyond.
Sourdough is one of those things that can be really good or really bad, and the really bad ones seem to dominate the market around here. Sometimes I think they just throw a handful of citric acid powder or vinegar in the dough and call it sourdough.
My wife can't tolerate the local sourdoughs, though she does just fine with the breads when we've been in San Francisco, where our younger son lives. So far she hasn't had a problem with the sourdough baguettes I've been making, they're not heavily 'sour'. I need to make a batch that doesn't also use some commercial yeast and see how those come out.
There is a fair amount of research on sourdough and glycemic index, it can temporize the peak in blood sugar associated with eating carbs. (Semolina has similar tendencies.)
Starters really run the gamut of possibilities, the one Aaron was talking about on yesterday's test Zoom call with milk, sugar and flour has been around since the 50's, and while it works, sometimes I really wonder how. There are starters that use grapes, raisins, potatoes and a few other fruits and vegetables as source material for yeast and possibly other microbes.
There was an interesting question on one of my cell phone news posts recently about who has the oldest starter. I know some of the San Francisco bakeries claim to have kept their starters going since the Gold Rush days (1849), but that may not be the oldest starter still going.
The sourdough is really sour (this is a good thing). The two boys like it. The girls do not. I can make it less sour by shortening the rises but I am not sure how much less.
I'll make pizza dough today. I may make challah too but I need to see about time.
I ordered the mold I linked to upthread, and it is actually about 4 inches long (I updated the earlier post), which makes it much easier to use for making your own chocolate batons for pain au chocolat. Next time I create a pot of tempered chocolate, I'll make some of these.
Some further recipe sorting turned up two additional versions of this recipe.
The first--my copy from the email forgets to include the salt, but it has been corrected in the link that Rottiedogs posted, and so appeared later on the website (what I'm calling the second version).
The third version was called Whole Grain Pain au Chocolat. It was changed to include some products KAF was pushing at the time: Buttery Sweet Dough Flavoring (so no vanilla and no hazelnut); grape seed flour, and glazing sugar. Proportions also differ. Here is the ingredient list:
1 cup lukewarm water
3 Tbs. granulated sugar
4 Tbs. butter
2 tsp. Butter Sweet Dough flavor or vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups KAF unbleached flour
3/4 cup KAF organic whole wheat flour
3 Tbs. Baker's special dry milk
3 Tbs. potato flour (or 1/3 cup potato flakes)
3 Tbs. grape seed flour (optional for extra antioxidants)
1 1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. instant yeast.
It uses a topping of 2 Tbs. milk and 1/4 cup glazing sugar or confectioner's sugar.
The shaping is done in a different manner, and that shaping may be what Skeptic recalls:
First, it divides the dough in half, and works with each half in turn. Each half is shaped into an 8"x 9" rectangle, each of which is cut into a 4"x3" piece. Each piece is positioned with the 3" side facing the baker. A stick of chocolate is put on the dough about an inch from and parallel to the far edge. The far edge is then folded toward the baker, over the stick to the middle of the dough, and the edge is pressed lightly to seal. A second stick of chocolate is put on that seam. The rear short edge (away from you) is then folded over the second stick, and the seam pressed lightly. The second seam should be about an inch from the new top edge of the roll.
The roll is then flipped over, so seam side is down and put on the parchment-lined baking sheet. The recipe states that the chocolate sticks will not melt out, so there is no need to seal the outside edges of the dough.
So, the third version is designed to be open on the ends and glazed.
I think the downtown farmer's market on Saturdays here is planning to open either this weekend or next. The Sunday one that is a lot closer to us (and has free parking) is still talking about opening in early June.
I avoided what was to me, the obvious choice and eliminated 2 other choices because I didn't think they had much iron at all (which I was wrong about) and so was able to make the correct selection.
Joan, I'm really intrigued with the pickle juice marinade. I'm trying that next time we have chicken. I made penne with square meatballs (leftover meatloaf lol), salad and Italian bread I made this morning. Ribs sound great. I like the country style ribs with bbq sauce.
I've got an online class tonight (HTML5 and CSS), let's shoot for tomorrow.
If you make the chocolate chip challah, it has really LONG rise times, I should probably have given it at least another hour in final proof. I made it with SAF Gold yeast. The recipe calls for ADY that is proofed, but I don't currently have any. James Beard's Monkey Bread recipe was one recipe where I found proofed ADY really outperformed IDY, though I never tried it with SAF Gold, because I didn't have any at the time.
The challah is very tasty, I cut the amount of cinnamon in the dough overall and added it, plus a little more, to the 3rd strand so that I had one dark chocolate strand, one strand heavy on chocolate chips, and one strand with extra cinnamon.
I need to make some practice dough to practice a six-strand braid, I've watched a number of videos, they make it look easy. (I'm still not sure if the method in 'Deli Man' is the same as the classic 6 strand braid, even though Jeffrey Hamelman says it is.)
