When I make Sourdough Pizza dough, I use King Arthur Flour's Sourdough Pizza Crust Recipe, but with one exception: I use their Perfect Pizza flour in place of AP Flour. It's such a lovely and versatile dough! I've made everything from deep dish pizza to rounds. Usually, I bake my pizzas on a steel that's pre heated at 500 degrees in my oven. When I make a deep dish, I preheat my cast iron skillet on top of the steel, and then have everything ready to go so I can shape the pizza in the hot skillet. Because I can't eat cheese, I will usually line the shaped dough with some quality extra virgin olive oil, then some homemade heirloom tomato sauce (that's a blog for another day) and a medley of vegetables, depending upon what's in season. I find that chicken sausage works great on these non-dairy pizzas. So do olives and mushrooms. If I'm feeling ambitious, I'll slice some potatoes on a mandolin and line the bottom of a pie with them (no sauce on those) and build from there. Here are a few variations:
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I've been baking from Peter Reinhardt's Bread Baker's Apprentice for a few months now. I've been getting fairly consistent results. This week, I took the dough from the fridge about 3 hours earlier (3:30AM) and baked it around 6:30am. And the results are spectacular. By giving the dough a slightly shorter cold proof and longer time to warm up before hitting the oven - I achieved those beautiful air pockets. The crumb is super soft. Even three days later, it's soft and incredibly delicious.
I added a metal bowl with water to the bottom while it was preheating (as always) but I also poured about 1/4 cup of water onto the bottom of the oven after putting the loaves onto the baking stone. so I got a huge pop of steam. About 5 minutes later, I sprayed the side walls of the oven with a mister. I took out the bowl at 12 minutes, turned down the heat and rotated the loaves, which resulted in a blistery, flaky, delicious crust. I feed my starter once a week. Usually 1:1. This particular feed - I gave it 100gms starter, 160gms bread flour, and 140 grams water. It was so vigorous and happy! It still gave me a strong sour flavor in the final product that made for an absolutely delicious crumb. It's my best loaf yet! I had a really healthy sourdough starter going. It was bubbling so beautifully, and I had plenty of it. I decided to make a sourdough Foccacia bread. Now, with most new bread baking adventures, I turned to my books first. I had plenty of options. However, they were all yeasted foccacia breads and I really wanted to use my healthy, bubbling sourdough starter. So, my next resource was Google. Of course, I found a few compelling sourdough Foccacia options, but they were all one-day bakes. If I have learned anything at all from baking with natural yeast, it's that the best flavors come from cold, overnight proofs. So I modified two different recipes to create this one. This recipe produces a moist, flaky and tender foccacia bread. Sponge:
Final Dough
Method 1. Create the sponge and let it rest until it begins to really bubble (approx. 1-3 hours) 2. Combine ingredients together and mix on slow speed with a dough hook until it forms a ball and you get a gluten widow. Depending on the hydration of your starter, you may end up adding ¼ – 1 cup more of flour while kneading. The dough will be soft and slightly moist from the oil and the kneading. 3. Form into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled, about 1-1/2 to 2 hours. Once dough has risen, place dough into a ½ sheet pan and begin to dimple until it reaches its elasticity point. Then cover with plastic wrap and stick it into the fridge overnight. 4. Take the dough out at least 4 hours hours before you plan to bake it and coat with Herb oil (optional). When the chill is gone, use your fingers to press dough into the bottom of the pan until it fills the pan. If your dough is very elastic and pulling away, allow it to rest for about five minutes and then continue. 5. Cover with a kitchen towel and allow it to rise until roughly doubled in size, about an hour. 6. Preheat oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. 7. Once dough is ready, lightly dock dough with your fingers all over, leaving little impressions. If the dough is a little dry on top, brush on a bit more extra virgin olive oil and then sprinkle with coarse sea salt. 8. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and allow it to cool in its pan on a rack. At the onset of winter, I began baking a lot more bread at home. I wanted to take a class with Peter Reinhardt, and when I searched online for something, I found his Craftsy course called Artisan Breads at Home. So, I signed up. First, I would like to extole the virtues on the Craftsy platform. I have taken many, many weekend or one-day cooking and baking courses in my life. They are great. You immerse yourself in the experience, ask questions of the instructor in front of you, and learn a lot. Craftsy is like all of those benefits, but rolled into my own kitchen. I can rewind, watch again, go back as many times as I want - and I can still ask the instructor questions. Now, I will say that Peter Reinhardt is a wonderful person. He has answered every single question I asked (and I asked a bunch). He's encouraged me, advised me and reviewed my results (through photos). He responds quickly and always has a positive attitude. That said, I learned a lot of technique - particularly his stretch and fold techniques, the proper way to form a baguette or batard, and shaping of so many other types of breads. In this course, he shares his sandwich bread recipe. I don't have permission to reprint it. So, my advise is either take his class or use the version in The Bread Baker's Apprentice (as it's very similar). This sandwich bread recipe is the most versatile dough I have ever worked with-- I use to to bake sandwich loaves that deliver a moist & delicious crumb. I use it to make dinner rolls, hamburger and slider buns, clover leaf rolls (a technique Peter explains the class) and so much more. I chose to blog about this-- even though I cannot share the recipe-- because each time I bake something using this recipe and post pictures of it - at least three to five people ask me for the recipe. So, instead, I will tell you where I got it from and share photos of my results. This recipe is an old standard. I've been making this banana bread for at least 20 years now. I've tried it many different ways, sometimes I add some cinnamon, sometimes I omit the nuts. I've baked it in 1 or 1 1/2 loaf pans, I've baked it in mini loaf pans. I've even tried them as muffins. Personally, I prefer them in mini loaf pans because they bake evenly, can be easily portioned, and easily given away. Ingredients:
Directions:
Glaze (optional)
Cool and serve. This winter, I decided to experiment with creating my own chocolate stout sourdough beer bread. This process began because my boyfriend bought a six pack of a craft beer he did not like. After the first sip he was about to throw away the rest. I couldn't let that happen. There were too many fun things to do with beer, besides drink it... beer batter fish fry (I'll post that blog separately), beer bread, steamed clams in a beer and garlic sauce... My first experiment was to try the bread. Most of the beer bread recipes that I played around with gave me a dense, chewy, overly sweet bread. I decided to use a lean sourdough formula, increase the hydration, and work with a fed starter. After a couple of tweaks here and there, I came to this recipe. The results are amazing. It gave me a truly complex flavor that distinctly called out the chocolate, the beer, and the sourdough. Ingredients:
Method: Pour the beer and the starter into the bottom of a mixing bowl. Using the dough hook, mix the beer and starter together for 1 minute to break up the starter. Let it rest 5 minutes. Add the sugar and the flour and mix for 2 minutes on slow speed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and flip the dough over. At this point it should be very sticky and a little shaggy. Mix again for two minutes on low speed. Scrape the dough off the sides and flip it over in the bowl again. Then cover and let it rest for 15 minutes. Add the salt to the dough and mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides, flip the dough over in the bowl and then mix again for another 2 minutes on medium speed. Lightly oil a large bowl. Pour the (still sticky but you should have decent gluten development now) dough into the bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Let it sit on the counter (at approx. 70 degrees F) for about an hour. Pour the dough onto a floured work surface. Using a bench scraper, fold the dough four times (top over bottom, left over right, bottom over top, right over left). Then brush off excess flour and cover with a damp towel (I use a wet, but rung out paper towel and then loosely cover with the leftover plastic wrap). Let it sit on the work surface for another hour. Heavily flour two round brotforms (wooden spiral baskets). Cut the dough in half (you can weigh it to make sure each loaf weighs the same amount), and shape each half into a ball. Place each ball into the brotform— seam side up— and cover with a damp towel. Leave them on the counter for about 30 minutes, then place each brotform into the fridge overnight. Take the loaves out about 90 minutes before you are ready to bake. Preheat the oven to 500F. Make sure you preheat your baking stone along with your oven on the center rack. About 20 minutes before you are ready to bake, fill a metal bowl with water and place it at the bottom of your oven. Carefully arrange your two loaves onto a parchment paper that’s been dusted with flour. Score the top of your loaves and then spray them with water (using a plant mister). Put the loaves onto the baking stone. I then pour about a cup of water onto the bottom of the oven – creating a burst of steam, then close the door and turn the heat down to 450F. After about 12 minutes, remove the bowl of water from the bottom of the oven and rotate your loaves. Continue baking until bread reaches an internal temp of 202F. |
DebI'm a home cook with a lifelong passion for learning, exploring and experimenting in my kitchen. You can find me at @Debs1 on Twitter and @Debs121212 on Instagram. Categories
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