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So my brother and his wife come down for a 60 mile bike ride this past weekend. Of course, I want to make pizza, and my brother has been tremendously impressed with the whole oven thing all along. Some of his friends are tagging along as well- so I make dough using two of my precious bags of caputo.
See, math has never been my strong point. I doubled the ingredients, weighed it out, and put it in the mixer. Seemed to labor a bit, so I took it out and dumped it so I could knead by hand. Whoa. Very dry. But I weighed everything! So I start adding water a little at a time. I finally got a workable dough, but I knew it was way too dry. I put it in the fridge overnight to see what it would do (it was quite late and I was irritated with it and myself) and in the morning, it has risen a tiny bit but not softened at all. Then I had the big lightbulb moment. The recipe is for 500 g flour, not 1K. I put in half as much water as I should have. What now?
Well, If you cut the dough into little bits, weigh the whole thing so you can figure out how much water you're short, and put it back in the mixer and add the bits and water a little at a time, you can save it! (just in case anyone else ever does this!) I made a workable dough and followed the recipe by letting it bulk rise and then shaped it and refrigerated it.
The pizzas shaped beautifully, baked great, and tasted fabulous. I'm hoping we have some pictures out of my brother's camera to post soon- we had a great time. There was some dough left, so we put it back in the fridge and made pizza for lunch the next day! I made one with caramelized onions and gorgonzola with olive oil and drizzled with a tiny bit of good balsamic vinegar. It was very, very good. We also took a couple of the dough balls and just did oil, salt and pepper and fresh rosemary and baked them like that- it was really good.
I got brave and cooked the onions, the sausage and the mushrooms in a cast iron skillet in the landing while the oven was heating. It worked great! I didn't notice any damage to my skillet's finish with the heat, so I'm going to do that again. Much better than heating up the house in the summer!
Maybe someday I'll be able to figure out how to do this the easy way instead of having to fix my mistakes, but at least so far I have gotten myself out of the corners I paint myself into!
See, math has never been my strong point. I doubled the ingredients, weighed it out, and put it in the mixer. Seemed to labor a bit, so I took it out and dumped it so I could knead by hand. Whoa. Very dry. But I weighed everything! So I start adding water a little at a time. I finally got a workable dough, but I knew it was way too dry. I put it in the fridge overnight to see what it would do (it was quite late and I was irritated with it and myself) and in the morning, it has risen a tiny bit but not softened at all. Then I had the big lightbulb moment. The recipe is for 500 g flour, not 1K. I put in half as much water as I should have. What now?
Well, If you cut the dough into little bits, weigh the whole thing so you can figure out how much water you're short, and put it back in the mixer and add the bits and water a little at a time, you can save it! (just in case anyone else ever does this!) I made a workable dough and followed the recipe by letting it bulk rise and then shaped it and refrigerated it.
The pizzas shaped beautifully, baked great, and tasted fabulous. I'm hoping we have some pictures out of my brother's camera to post soon- we had a great time. There was some dough left, so we put it back in the fridge and made pizza for lunch the next day! I made one with caramelized onions and gorgonzola with olive oil and drizzled with a tiny bit of good balsamic vinegar. It was very, very good. We also took a couple of the dough balls and just did oil, salt and pepper and fresh rosemary and baked them like that- it was really good.
I got brave and cooked the onions, the sausage and the mushrooms in a cast iron skillet in the landing while the oven was heating. It worked great! I didn't notice any damage to my skillet's finish with the heat, so I'm going to do that again. Much better than heating up the house in the summer!
Maybe someday I'll be able to figure out how to do this the easy way instead of having to fix my mistakes, but at least so far I have gotten myself out of the corners I paint myself into!
- I always tell myself that the adrenalin those little moments give you must be good for you.
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