[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. Maybe I'll try some baking with it out of the oven. And, like you Mike, I am very curious about the baking steels but I am not sure why it is better and as you point out it is expensive and heavy.

In my last oven the door had no window and no insulation so the stone actually helped keep the temperature consistent. When our youngest started moving about we decided it was finally time to bite the bullet and splurge for a new oven that was significantly less dangerous to kids (although our first two survived with no burns and without setting anything on fire from the pilot lights).

But even before that oven I never took it out. Mine is some unglazed ceramic rectangle. And I used to have it on the bottom but I recently moved it to the middle shelf (our old oven only had two shelves).
And, again, it helps regulate the oven temp. The people who installed the oven never tested the temperature and so there can be big variances in different parts of the oven. The stone helps mitigate that some. Some day I'll have someone service the oven and adjust.

That is the one thing I miss about our old oven - it was dead simple and I could do most repairs and maintenance myself and I am not a handy person. I also made some insulators for the door but it was ugly so it was banished from the kitchen.

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. My pizza and challah doughs are pretty yeasty. Although I cut the yeast in half on this batch so we'll see how it goes.

I went to SAF (owned by Red Star). They talk about freezing dough here:Freezing Dough

In their frequently asked questions they talk about storing yeast in the freezer here.Storing yeast in freezer

I may still do my own thing but then I only have myself to blame when it does not work...

[aaronatthedoublef]

I've found white whole wheat to be less bitter than red whole wheat. I still needed some kind of sweet in it.

Is there some whole grain that is also sweet that you could use?

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, what a neat idea to give out small toys and such. Maybe we'll do that next year.

We live on a street that gets loads of traffic (pedestrian and cars- it's kind of scary) from all over. I gave away less candy than usual mostly because I limited how much I bought. I had about 1500 pieces that were gone after 2.5 hours.

Lots of people give away full size or movie theater size candy. Our next door neighbor was out in his driveway with a movie theater candy counter.

Several years ago a man who lived down the street gave out half pound Hershey bars. He had pallets on his driveway and hired kids from the local college to hand out the candy while he watched. He grew up poor and Halloween and Christmas were the only time he ever had candy so he loves to give it out himself. He has since moved a block east. One of these Halloweens I'll have to walk over and see how he is doing.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I grew up on the South Side and we always had thin crust. Pizza was the one food we would bring in on a semi-regular basis. In the 70s we had two new places come to our neighborhood. One served deep dish and the other was Giordano's.

I haven't been back to the old neighborhood since my mother died but there were many different pizza places even a Pizza Hut (ugh).

I am raising my kids as if they are South Siders when it comes to sports teams and we have a tradition that I will ship in pizza when a team wins a championship. The Blackhawks have cost me a fair bit of money.

The place I was craving the most now is the Home Run Inn. It has it's own distinct pizza but seems to never have had the big publicity places like Malnati's and Giordano's enjoyed.

And no, we will not be ordering pizza if the Cubs win tonight. I am from the South Side.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks.

The first time I make something I try to follow the recipe exactly. For his pizza dough in "My Bread" Leahy says to use 300 grams of bread flour and let it rise for two hours so I did that. I used a little extra water because the dough was too dry and was not coming together.

I then divided it in half per his instructions and tried to stretch it by hand to fit a half sheet. That was where I ran into trouble.

I took the second half and froze it. Then I let it thaw out for about 24 hours in the refrigerator and rolled it with a rolling pin. If I'd really wanted to test this I probably should have tried to hand stretch this but I didn't.

Now I'll try some variations on the flour. I know you suggest semolina to lower the gluten but I'll use cake flour. My family does not like semolina (at least when I use it).

Also, looking up Leahy recipes on the web Mr. Leahy and his acolytes are letting his pizza dough rest for 18-24 hours. I really like longer so I may try that too. But I like to only change one or two things at a time. All this takes time and I only make pizza once a week so it will take a while to sort all this out. I would bet some of this is covered in "My Pizza" but I do not want to shell out another $20+ for it.

[aaronatthedoublef]

RottieDog, that is exactly what Jim Leahy recommends in "My Bread". I tried that a couple weeks ago with no success. It was thick (Mr. Leahy says his is cracker thin) and chewy but tasted good. I kept tearing holes in it and repairing the holes.

Some of this may have been because it needed to rest more after I cut the dough.

This week I took the second half of the dough and used my rolling pin and rolled it out and put it on a half sheet. It was thin. Perhaps it was because the dough was rested or maybe it was just the rolling pin or maybe both.

I can turn pizza on my hands, toss it, or roll it but not stretch it by hand. Maybe I just need to practice more.

My primary purpose is to give people a dough they do not need to knead in a machine or by hand.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Sounds like a good meta topic - what accidental discoveries did you make while cooking/baking that changed the way you make a recipe?

[aaronatthedoublef]

I worked in the kitchen in college and we had a night time snack bar. Usually I ran the grill while the pizza makers made pizza. We usually started them with a rolling pin and then hand tossed them and the tossing could get quite involved.

Friday night was usually slow (people went off campus) so we would have pizza tossing contests and in addition to seeing how big people could stretch the dough we had people doing 360 degree turns and various other acrobatics while the dough was in the air.

How no one ever crashed into anything and was seriously injured is a minor miracle. 🙂

[aaronatthedoublef]

In a six strand, double decker like Mike's I have two lengths - the bottom and the top with the top being shorter.

[aaronatthedoublef]

One of my all-time favorites is Rosie's Bakery All Butter, Fresh Cream Sugar-Packed Baking Book. The old version I have is available used on Amazon. There appears to be a newer edition available though.

I love that book

Like BakerAunt, I think RLB can be a little challenging. She left an important step out of her buttercream recipe that caused me to lose several batches before I asked my friend and she told me what I was doing wrong. I also like the Bernard Clayton Complete Book of Bread.

Peter Reinhart's BBA is a great read even if you never make a recipe from it.

I really like the KAF Baker's Companion. I use it a lot. I also like Jacques Torres Dessert Circus. But it is very expensive now. I bought it on remainder at the public television store after they cancelled the series.

I am still a big fan of The Joy of Cooking. I have several different editions including my mom's from the 50s and I like it better than the Mark Bittman or the New York Times attempts to displace it.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by aaronatthedoublef.

[aaronatthedoublef]

I know, I know... but, as the Great Chicago Pizza Book points out, most Chicago pizzas are made using a sheeter. I remember watching them at Giordano's.

The other day we had a dough shortage (we had an extra teenage boy at the last minute!) and I bought some dough at the store. I started to hand stretch it and then, for fun, started to toss it at which point my middle looked at me and said "stop showing off". 🙂

So I can and have done both. For most nights I prefer my rolling pin as does my family (which is really who this is all for).

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting... We do about a load a day - we're a family of five.

We hand wash pots and pans. I guess they are dishwasher safe but we still hand wash them.

I also hand wash most of our metal mixing bowls. Yes they can be put in the machine but dishwashers are not designed for bowls and I find it easier to just use my hands.

When we have people visiting we'll usually do two loads a day.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Thanks. I used KAF bread flour so it's definitely high in protein but it's no-knead so I didn't think the gluten would have developed much. I actually followed the recipe exactly and even weighed the ingredients. I needed a bit of extra water as the dough was too dry.

I still have half a recipe left so I'll play with this. I may try using a rolling pin which is what I normally use. It makes it thinner than I can get hand tossing and I do not have the big crust on the edge.

Thanks for all the help.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Mike, beautiful challah!

Just out of curiosity, have you ever made a six strand challah? I've tried a couple but they don't come out as nice as the two layer challahs.

I made two different pizza recipes, mine and Jim Leahy's no-knead pizza dough. It's interesting because the method in the book appears to be different from what is online in places like this http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/03/jim-laheys-no-knead-pizza-dough-recipe.html.

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