What are You Baking the Week of October 1, 2017?

[BakerAunt]

For Sunday breakfast, I made Native-Grain Hotcakes, from The Better Homes and Gardens New Baking Book, p. 319. These pancakes, which use a lot of buckwheat flour, along with some cornmeal and regular flour, have been a favorite of ours since I discovered the recipe three years ago.

For the leftover batter, I pulled out a Nordic Ware nonstick pan that has four wells for making small even pancakes, and I got 12 of these. We might try eating them with honey or jam for breakfast tomorrow. That pan was ridiculously inexpensive as it was on the clearance aisle at T.J. Maxx a few years back. I bought it for making the little buckwheat cakes that can be used as a base for appetizers, although I have yet to do so.

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[Joan Simpson]

Baked two more loaves of the sourdough this morning and it's so much better than the last.The starter really is right now.After overnight rise I kneaded it and placed in loaf pans it only took 2 hours to rise above the pans and the crumb was so much better,not as heavy.Happy here!

[BakerAunt]

I made pizza for dinner using the KAF Ultra-Thin crust pizza recipe.

[Mike Nolan]

I'm going to try one of the recipes from Rosie's book, honeypots.

[BakerAunt]

Today I baking Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers from the dough I made up last week.

[BakerAunt]

A vender at the local farmers' market had a variety of apples. She let me taste a couple, and I settled on a tart, yellowish green with golden brown coloring. She split a half bushel for me, and I only realized after I was home that I did not have the bag with the name written on it. I will try to find out the name next Saturday. On Tuesday, I baked an apple pie using some of them. I probably won't be able to cut into it until tomorrow, since it needs to sit for at least four hours, and the recipe (Cooks Illustrated Baking) says next day is best.

[Mike Nolan]

Made the honeypots last night, they're a lot softer than I was expecting, I wonder if I didn't cook them long enough, even though I did it a good 5 minutes longer than the instructions called for.

It looks like I'm not going to get any Winesaps this year, the vendor who normally has them says his late season apples, including Winesap, all got apple maggots even though he sprayed for them.

Going to check with one other local orchard that occasionally has them available, otherwise I'll probably buy some Haralson apples from the one vendor.

I usually bake fruit pies the day before I want to eat them.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I made pizza Sunday night. It has become our pizza night. I made a cheese, a sausage, an olive, and a vegetable with sweet peppers, Swiss chard, and onions. I've been putting the chard on when the pizza first went into the oven but I should probably wait until I turn the pizza and then add the chard. It gets over cooked. Although last week I made a white pizza with chard, onions, peppers, goat cheese, and mozzarella and that worked well.

I need to make some challah and English muffins this week as well as an apple pie. I'm thinking of using macouns and macintosh.

[Italiancook]

I read the reports of y'all making pizza with interest. I've never tried it. When I think about trying it, I'm stymied. I'd like homemade pizza as a spur-of-the-moment meal, because when I buy pizza, it's always spur-of-the-moment. I can never figure out how to have topping ingredients when the moment arrives that I want pizza. The mozzarella I buy doesn't have a long shelf life. So if I buy the cheese, it might expire before the pizza mood hits. Maybe I'm just not a homemade pizza maker. I guess I could make the dough & freeze it, but it's the toppings that allude me.

I also don't own a stone & don't want one because of its weight. But I've seen pizza made on a sheet pan on Pioneer Woman.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Hi Italiancook. The only mozzarella my family likes that is readily available is Trader Joes. When I go by TJ's I grab a bunch and throw it in the freezer. I thought I had one thawing this past Sunday but I didn't so we left it on the counter for a half hour then grated it by hand (it would be easier/faster with a food processor but more cleanup and setup). We could also grate the cheese and then freeze it which, now that I write this makes more sense. We don't by grated cheese because it always has cellulose which really is fine but for some reason just creeps me out. And really, it only takes a few minutes to shred the cheese myself (it takes my kids a little longer).

So you can keep dough, sauce, and cheese all frozen which is the foundation. Then you can put whatever you want on it and whatever you have in your house. We've been using chard because we had a share of a community sponsored agriculture from a local farm and the last few Fridays we've picked up chard. That is also where the onions and sweet peppers have come from. We usually have goat cheese because my wife and oldest love it. We always have olives because everyone loves them except me.

You can absolutely make pizza in a pan. Some of my favorite pizza in the world - Giordano's stuffed - is baked in a pan (their thin crust used to be too). And the first pizza making job I had was in my college dining hall and we made pan pizzas there. The whole point of making our own pizza is to make what we like and make pizza that is a little less bad for us. So whatever floats your boat is fine.

[Mike Nolan]

mozzarella freezes very well. I buy shredded whole milk mozzarella in 5 pound bags at Sams Club and divide it into 12 ounce portions. (12 ounces turns out to be just about the right amount of cheese for a small pizza or pizza bread for 2 people.)

A good pizza isn't really a 'spur of the moment' dish here, because the dough really needs to age for several hours, preferably overnight.

KAF has a perforated sheet pan for doing pizza that fits in my small oven. I've used several times, you need to oil it well or the dough sticks in some of the perforations (that's also likely due to how I stretch out the dough), but it makes a nice crisp thin crust pizza.

As to sauce and toppings, I've been using a garlic-free tomato sauce (Sams Club) on pizzas, with some oregano, thyme and marjoram added. If I stir in some 4 cheese blend, it makes a great marinara for dipping or on spaghetti, though the Hunts traditional pasta sauce is pretty good too, I add a can or two of sliced mushrooms to it for spaghetti. We almost always have red peppers and mushrooms in the fridge, though for pasta and pizza I often prefer canned mushrooms, and I buy Oscar Meyer sliced pepperoni when it's on sale and keep it in the freezer. (It's the only garlic-free brand I've found locally.)

[aaronatthedoublef]

12 ounces of cheese per pizza! Wow. I use about 4 ounces and my wife says I am using too much. 🙂 In college one of the two adults who managed all us students in the kitchen insisted we use 2 ounces which was just not enough. He would bring out the scale and watch us for a few then get bored and leave and we would sneak more cheese on.

I made five, 12 inch pizzas and used 20 ounces of cheese. We didn't have any goat cheese this week though.

[BakerAunt]

Until my supply runs out, I have tomato paste in tubes. We smear what we want on our individual pizzas. Our marriage would not survive a joint pizza. 🙂 I bake my husband's pizza first, then mine, since I am the one who actually likes hot food hot rather than lukewarm. However, when I did a sheet pan pizza, we each decked our half as we like it.

After the tomato paste, I sprinkle garlic powder and Penzey's Tuscan Seasoning (salt-free) over the tomato paste. I then put down the salami (we get nitrate-free) or sometimes we use ground turkey, in which case I add fennel seed with the earlier spices. I then put on the red bell pepper, the sliced mushrooms, the black olives, and the sliced green onion. I sprinkle mozzarella on top (we buy the thick pre-graded from Sargentio), and then grate some parmesan over it.

My husband does not like a lot on his pizza. After the tomato paste he adds the meat, some mushrooms, and maybe a bit of bell pepper. He has branched out to a few green onions. We've discovered that while I can add the cheese on mine and bake it for 15 minutes, his cheese will burn (maybe because of the lack of vegetables), so I bake his for 10 minutes, then take it out so that he can add the mozzarella, then bake it 4-5 minutes longer.

I usually have all pizza ingredients on hand, but I have to think ahead for the mushrooms, and indeed I had to run to the store for them on Sunday. I use the KAF ultra-thin crust pizza recipe, but before that, in my single days, I used to make the Fleischmann's recipe booklet one. It can fit in a large sheet pan. I also used to make it up as two round pizzas and par-bake the crust at 350 for ten minutes. One then was used for that evening's pizza, and the other was wrapped and frozen for another night. I've also made a Martha Stewart Living pizza crust that I put in a large sheet pan.

[BakerAunt]

Next Day's Report on the apple pie: These are a tart apple and not particularly juicy--which may be a good thing, as I forgot to add the 2 Tbs. of flour to the apple mixture. (Some juice did leak out onto the pan beneath.) The slices held their shape. We like the flavor, although I think that I will increase the sugar from 3/4 to 1 cup next time. I decided that the pie does need vanilla ice cream, so we bought some on our grocery run. The pie has the dreaded "air gap." but more so on one side than the other. I may have gotten better slits on the side with less of a gap. (I read the KAF blog on gaps before baking the pie, and that was one suggestion.) I might try cooking the apples a bit, then cooling them for the next pie. However, I think the rest of these apples may be used for apple hand pies.

[Italiancook]

Aaron, thanks for the info about freezing mozzarella. I freeze hard cheeses like Romano, but didn't know mozzarella could be frozen. Mike, I also didn't know pepperoni could be frozen. I always have tomato sauce in the freezer. I assume, Aaron, that when you say tomato sauce, you mean regular tomato sauce and not something special made just for pizza. Correct?

BakerAunt, Thanks for your detailed post. I read it as if you put raw meat on the pizza. And raw veggies. I've always thought the meat and veggies had to be pre-cooked. Am I wrong?

Aaron, offhand, do you know the type/brand name of mozzarella you buy at TJ's? I don't shop there, but my husband likes to go there.

It looks like homemade pizza will be in my future.

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