Pizza Dough

For the last six years our so we have been really into making our own pizza. However, we were not so ambitious as to make our own crust until very recently. We found a recipe and thought we would give it a shot but had little expectations it would turn out well on our first try. It ended up turning out so well and was surprisingly easy to make. I don't think we will be able to go back to making pizza using Trader Joe's premade crust. 

Ingredients

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups water

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in 1/2 cup water. Stir in a 1/2 cup of flour and mix well. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and let it rise until it's foamy, about an hour.

Mix in the remaining water, flour, and salt and beat well.

When the dough starts to form as you're mixing, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and supple, about 15 minutes.

Place the dough in a large bowl, dusted with flour, and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rise until doubled, about 2 or 3 hours.

Deflate the dough and separate it out into two equal pieces. Bring one piece out to a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough out to half of its final size. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Stretch out the dough with your hands or a rolling pin until it is slightly larger than your pizza pan (room for the crust). Put dough on the pan, evenly spread some tomato sauce around, and form the crust. Add desired toppings, and bake for about 10 or 15 minutes, or until the crust becomes crispy.

For an even tastier crust, once it has been formed but before you put pizza in the oven, brush some olive oil and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on the crust. It's super easy but really brings the pizza up a notch. 

Side note - we often play around with different toppings but our favorite toppings are normally goat cheese and olives.

Enjoy!

Homemade Pretzels

A couple of weeks ago I wanted to make a snack to eat while we watched an ASU game. We had been talking about making homemade pretzels for a while so when I found this recipe and knew it would be a winner. It was so good and fairly easy that I ended up making a second batch a couple of weeks later.

Ingredients

4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon white sugar

1 1/4 cups warm water (not warm enough to burn your finger if you put it in the water for 5 seconds)

5 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oils

1/2 cup baking soda

4 cups hot water

kosher salt, for topping

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and the teaspoon of sugar in 1 1/4 cup warm water. Let stand for about 10 minutes. The mixture should be foamy (see picture below).

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, the rest of the sugar, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. Make a well in the center of the bowl and add the oil and yeast mixture. Mix and form into a dough. You will likely need to add a few tablespoons of water while mixing.

Knead the dough until smooth, about 7 or 8 minutes. Put dough in a lightly greased bowl and flip dough around so both sides are lightly greased. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about an hour.

Once the dough has risen, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope and twist into a pretzel shape or a knot.

In a large bowl, dissolve the baking soda in 4 cups of hot water.

Dip each piece of dough in the baking soda solution and place on either a greased or tin foil covered cookie sheet. Sprinkle with desired amount of kosher salt.

Bake at 450 degrees between 8 or 10 minutes or until brown.

Black Bread

 

Michael's brother bought Michael the Game of Throne cookbook for his birthday. (Thanks Adam!) If you are into Game of Thrones and you like to cook it is a must-have. After going through every recipe in the book we decided the black bread would be the first recipe we should try. It's a delicious bread that can be eaten with almost anything (we used it for sandwiches, cheeses, bruschetta, etc.), but would be amazing with a stew.

 

Ingredients

2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (1 packet)

One 12-ounce bottle dark beer such as a stout or porter, at room temperature

3 tablespoons honey (the original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons but we like it a little bit less bitter)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 egg, beaten

4 to 5 cups mixed flour (we used 2 cups of rye and 2 1/2 cups of TJ's whole wheat/white flour blend)

additional flour for working (once again we used TJ's flour)

 

In a small bowl, add the yeast and honey to the bear and allow the mixture to sit for 5 minutes until it becomes foamy. Add the salt and beaten egg to the wet ingredients, then begin adding in the mixed flour, one cup at a time.

 

Once the dough forms into a cohesive mass, flour your work surface and turn the dough out for kneading. Need the dough for about 5 minutes until it bounces back when poked.

 

Cover with a clean dish towel and let it rise for at least 1 hour in a warm spot. I usually turn the oven on warm for a few minutes, turn it off and then put the dough in to rise.

 

Next, punch down the dough, put the towel back on and let it rise again for at least 2 more hours in a warm area.

 

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

 

 

Form the dough into two loaves and dust them lightly with flour. If you want you can use a knife to slash the tops in a decorative pattern.

 

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned, then let it stand for at least 15 minutes before serving.

 

 

This picture shows the bread with goat cheese, pistachios and dates. I highly recommend trying this!

 

Enjoy!

 

Best Challah Ever

Fall busy season is officially over this year, which means I finally have some time to dedicate to baking again. We decided to have some people over last night for dinner and to watch the ASU game so I thought I would make another attempt to find a good challah recipe. After I found this recipe I don't think I will ever need to search for another challah recipe again, it is so delicious and perfect!

Ingredients

2 cups water

1/4 cup white sugar

3 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast

1/2 cup margarine

1/4 cup brown sugar

7 cups bread flour

1 tablespoon salt

4 eggs

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon (or so) of sesame seeds (optional)

In a large bowl, mix the yeast with 100 degree water and the water sugar and allow it to sit for about 5 minutes or until it has become very foamy. In case you're not sure how warm the water should be, it should be very warm but not so warm that you would burn yourself if you stuck your finger in for 5 or more seconds.

Next, mix in the brown sugar, eggs and margarine. Once well mixed, add in the flour and salt. I added the flour one to two cups at a time, stirring in between each additional cup

Once the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes or so. The dough is very sticky and it's okay to add some flour but you do not want to add too much. You may end up needed to scrape some dough off the surface you're using to knead.

Lightly oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. I used the same bowl I had used to mix the ingredients and coated the bowl with oil, put the dough in, took the dough out and coated the bowl with oil again and flipping the dough to its other side so both sides end up coated in oil. Cover with a dmp cloth and let rise in a warm place until it has doubled in size, about an hour.

Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into six or eight equal pieces, depending on if you want a three strand or four strand braid. I did a four strand braid this time around, but I think both are beautiful.

Form each piece into long ropes.

Begin to braid. If you want to do a four strand braid but are not sure how, I highly recommend watching this youtube video. Once you watch it all you need to remember is "4 over 2, 1 over 3, and 2 over 3."

Place the loaves on two cookie sheets (either greased or tin foiled), cover the loaves with a damp cloth and let rise until double in volume. About 40 minutes or so.

I learned after the first loaf to very lightly flour the top of the challah before putting the damp cloth over it because the cloth ended up sticking to the dough, which made the challah a little bit less presentable. I was able to salvage the second loaf and it looked a lot better (see challah on the right below). 

Preheat the over to 350 degrees. Brush the risen loaves with the beaten egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.

Bake in the preheated oven for about a half hour, until loaf sounds hollow when tapped or bread is browned and feels hard to the touch.

Note: this is great with olive dip (recipe to follow) and also makes amazing second day french toast! 

Enjoy!