What are you Baking the Week of February 28, 2021?

[Mike Nolan]

A hobby store or one that supports modelmakers is another place you can get wood strips in various thicknesses. I've even seen them at some hardware stores. They're usually a soft wood, like pine or balsa, the wooden wands that King Arthur used to sell were made from maple, which is a much harder wood. If anybody's still making them, I haven't found them online. Maybe Etsy, that seems to be where the crafters hang out?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Len - your pizza is a work of art!

Mike - is my math right? Are you really putting 14 ounces of cheese on your pizza? Your my hero!

Does anyone ever par-bake their crusts? I'm thinking about it for my veggie pizza where the raw veggies give off lots of water and for my sausage pizza where the sausage gives of lots of grease (I went back to Chicago method for my sausage).

I've now made two batches of whoopie pies. The first spread too much. I then noted that I had changes the recipe and added more flour so my second batch of cakes looks very nice. I'll make the filling tonight. Violet helped with the first batch but not the second because I had to make them quick and early this morning. I'll let her help with the filling.

I was going to bake some crackers but ran out of time. I'll do that tonight or tomorrow. The dough is resting right now.

I have my first COVID 19 vaccine this weekend! The scheduling system here is a mess! Badly thought through and I'm not convinced that federalizing it would have made it any better. Yes, I know how hard building a massively scalable scheduling system is (I've worked on them). But they came up with multiple new vaccines in under a year which is MUCH harder.

[Mike Nolan]

Probably closer to 15 ounces of cheese by the time you add in the 4 cheese blend that I sprinkle on top.

But keep in mind this pizza is 15x20, which is the equivalent of a round pizza that is over 19 inches in diameter.

Godfather's Pizza used to advertise that they put over two pounds of mozzarella on their large (16 inch?) pizza.

I've done par baking for pizzas that I cooked on the grill, but not the ones I do in the oven. I pre-heat the oven to 375, the pizza is on the bottom rack (on an upside down sheet pan) and I bump the temperature up by 5-10 degrees several times during the baking cycle (about 25 minutes) so that the lower element in my electric oven stays on. I think that does a better job of cooking the pizza from the bottom up.

[Mike Nolan]

A major reason Project Warp Speed worked was because the government authorized and helped fund the research and then GOT OUT OF THE WAY while the researchers did their work. They also short-cutted the approval process more than for any drug since the 1960's, I suspect.

The reason the distribution system has had problem is because at every level (federal, state and local) government officials feel they have to have some say or control over who gets what, where and when.

But even then, when it works, it works pretty well. We got our first shots yesterday (the Pfizer vaccine) and from the time we left the house until the time we got back home was less than an hour and a half, and that included time spent at the drive-through at Arbys picking up some lunch. There may have been as many as 200 people working the site by the time you count in traffic control, check-in, seeing a doctor then seeing a nurse to get the injection and seeing someone else on the way out after a 15 minute wait in case there are any reactions.

[RiversideLen]

Thanks, everybody, for the compliments on my pizza.

It's been a while since I made a true deep dish pizza, I was following a recipe on KAF and they called for par baking the crust for 10 minutes. When I did that I found the crust starting to develop oven spring. Then the next time I did it, I placed the cheese on the crust hoping that would help keep down the oven spring. If I recall correctly, it did not but it didn't hurt giving the cheese a little head start as all the topping cover it. I think the problem with the KAF recipe is the amount of yeast it calls for, 2 3/4 tsp. If I make it again I will reduce the yeast to one tsp.

[Mike Nolan]

A little oven spring is not a bad thing if you like thick crust pizza, but if you parbake the crust that does make getting the sauce and toppings on evenly a bit more challenging.

Has anybody made a Detroit-style pizza, with the sauce on top?

[cwcdesign]

I made a batch of the No Knead Cheese Burger Buns from KAF. Will brought out the bread machine for me so all I had to do was dump the ingredients in - I just put the bucket on my scale and hit tare after each ingredient. After the dough cycle was done, I made the balls - a good hand exercise. We’ll have burgers tomorrow.

I subbed in a cup of sprouted wheat bread for some of the AP, used 2 teaspoons yeast instead of 2½ - I would have used less but for the sprouted wheat and used 3/4 teaspoon Penzey’s garlic powder instead of 1 teaspoon onion powder.

[Joan Simpson]

Thanks for the tip on the slats BakerAunt I'll check on them.

[BakerAunt]

On Thursday, I baked my adaptation of Grandma A’s Ranch Hand Bread. (The recipe is posted here at Nebraska Kitchen, along with a recipe for a scaled down single loaf by Zen.) It makes three 8x4 loaves. I will freeze two. My adaptation includes adding ½ cup flax meal and 1/3 cup special dry milk, replacing 3 cups of the water with buttermilk, using 5 cups whole wheat flour and a mixture of bread and King Arthur AP, reducing the salt, replacing the 3 Tbs. of sugar with honey, and using 4 Tbs. olive oil in place of the butter.

[RiversideLen]

I'm in the process of making a batch of sandwich/burger buns.

[BakerAunt]

Some years ago, I bought the Emile Henry ceramic Dutch oven from King Arthur. I had never used it, so I decided that it was time and brought it into the house about a month ago. While sorting through some recipes, I came upon a King Arthur one for Dutch Oven Dinner Rolls that uses this pot, so today I tried out both the recipe and the pot. I made some changes, as the recipe calls for ½ cup of butter. In the dough, I replaced the 4 Tbs. with 3 Tbs. olive oil and an additional tablespoon of buttermilk. I replaced ¾ cup of the water with buttermilk. I do not have non-diastatic malt powder, so I used 2 Tbs. Carnation malted milk. (I know, not the same.) I added 2 Tbs. flax meal and 1 Tbs. special dry milk. I deleted the buttermilk powder and used fresh buttermilk. I reduced the salt to 1 tsp. and the yeast to 1 ¾ tsp. I always proof my active yeast, and I did so in ¼ cup of water with ¼ tsp. honey. I let the bread machine do the kneading. The first rise took an hour. I greased the baking crock with Crisco instead of melting 3 Tbs. of butter in the bottom, and I also sprinkled it liberally with farina. I had some concerns, as the dough seemed a bit dry. After shaping the balls and placing them in the pot, I spritzed them with water. The second rise took 45 minutes (in the front room where the wood stove made it warmer). I spritzed again before baking with the lid on for 15 minutes, then removing it and baking another ten minutes. We had a couple of warm ones with dinner: delicious!

[Joan Simpson]

BakerAunt glad your rolls turned out and you got to use your Dutch oven.I have a couple iron ones and love,love them,they're just heavy.

[BakerAunt]

Joan--I have a 4-qt. Staub, a 5 1/2 -qt. Le Creuset, a 7 1/4-qt. Le Creuset (all of these are round), and an oval 8-qt Staub. Except for the 4-qt. (a good King Arthur sale), the rest came from Tuesday Morning years ago. I prefer them for all my soups, for cooking beans, and for braising roasts. I can even put them on the wood stove top to cook although now that I have my gas cooktop, I have not done so. I have never tried any of them for bread, although lots of people use them that way, and I replaced the Le Creuset lid knobs with metal ones, in case I ever decide to try it.

The Emile Henry Dutch oven is supposed to work over a flame as well, but I prefer to keep it for bread. I'm planning on trying some round loaves. Some people have reported sticking issues, but given my other ceramic bakers, greasing with Crisco and coating with farina does the trick for me. I won't be heating up the baker and dropping in the dough--too much risk/excitement for me. King Arthur reports that letting it rise in the baker and then baking works just as well. I'll start by following their recipes, then try it with the rustic sourdough.

[kimbob]

Made a pain de mie and shortbread biscuit for strawberry shortcake later.

[Mike Nolan]

This is pretty similar to the cookie shovel that King Arthur used to sell, I've used ours to safely lower boules into a hot cast iron pan. I think this one is even bigger than ours, and it comes in a 12" size.

Cookie Shovel

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