I just got a new range that has a convection oven with hidden coils.  Does any one no if it is safe to keep my pizza stone directly on the floor of the oven?  I would think that putting directly on the bottom would make for a very nice crispy bottom crust.  Thank you.

I've been searching the archives and can't find an answer to this.

Has anyone actually had success making very wet doughs (like about 85-95% hydration) for pizza or ciabatta using a light duty hand held mixer?

We are traveling to visit our son and they want me to make them some pizza. The problem is that they don't do much baking and they have only a little hand held mixer. After bragging about my pizza, I wouldn't like to make one that didn't meet standards just because of the lack of proper machine kneading. I can't take my big Kitchen Aid on the plane.

If anyone has had success with a little mixer, I'd love to hear about it ... any problems encountered, how you overcame them, etc. or how you compensated for the lack of power in the mixer. I'll be making a standard small batch, about 500 g. flour. I'd love to do this if it is possible.

Catherine

I wanted to make naan. I pored over the recipes in my cookbooks, the recipes given here at Fresh Loaf,  and decided that I did NOT want to make any straight-through naan. I have been making bread from a pre-ferment for so long that I have come to dislike the tasty of straight-through bread. It's too yeasty. Also, it costs more; yeast, even at my food co-op in bulk, can be expensive. I'm dirt-poor right now, and economizing. That's why the recipe from my Afghan cookbook appealed. It used a pre-ferment and didn't call for lots of expensive ingredients. 

The real Afghan naan is sourdough. They make it every day (send it out to the baker to bake in his tandoor) and just save a pinch of dough from today's bread to put in the pre-ferment for tomorrow's bread. I had let my sourdough culture die (bad mom!) but I could use a little yeast.

So I just made bread dough as if I were making the Fresh Loaf ciabatta (but without the dried milk, which I don't have). Pre-ferment of flour (mix of white and ww), yeast, and water, then added oil, salt, and a little more yeast the next day. Kneaded in KitchenAid. Let it rise once and then baked it in a cast-iron skillet on top of the stove. The pliable dough rolled out beautifully. (4-1/2 cups flour total made 12 naan just the right size for a skillet.)

I've never had tandoor naan, so I don't know what I'm missing ... but THIS naan was dang good. I froze most of it and I've been eating one or two a day. With a sprinkling of salt. Plus some homemade chai. Yum.

What recipe would I use for making panini?

I wanted to share a terrific find for pizza makers here in Montreal. I was at Bonaza Grocery store and I was thrilled

to find 5kg of Farina Tipo 00 for only $6,99. I though it would be of interest to some bakers here in Montreal since most

flour suppliers that are mentioned are in the US.

Hi all - I'm new at this but I am looking for a recipe for Italian Pepper Biscuits - I used to live in Astoria NY where there was this great Italian Bread shop and they always had them - I have retired to the Philippines and as you can imagine - I can't find anything like them here.  This is more like a twice baked bread - done in the style of a biscotti - baked once then cut into slices and baked again - not sweet and does not have anylthing but lots of cracked black pepper!  I have been searching (on the net) for days now and can not find anything that sounds close.  Anyone out there know what I am talking about and have a recipe?  Thanks in advance, Louis

I am wanting to figure out how to make a multi grain whole wheat tortilla.  I have a recipe I really like and use all the time that I can sub some whole wheat in.  I am wondering if anyone has any ideas about adding grains to the tortillas.  I was wondering about soaking craked grains.  But would they need to be ground finer after they are soaked?  And how much should I add to a 2 c of flour recipe?  Maybe a couple tablespoons.  I am going to just start experimenting, but I have surfed the web and not found any ideas.  So I didn't know if anyone had any ideas.

One of the things my family really used to enjoy when we lived in Philadelphia was the pepperoni bread from Marciano's Bakery in Manayunk, right across the Schuylkill River from our house.

Since we had some friends from Philly visiting this weekend, I decided to take a shot at reproducing our favorite. I can't get the pic to upload, but you can see it at http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=1359101022/PictureID=40578588022/a=156993369_156993369/

Basically, I took my standard pizza dough, which I store in boules of 300g, and instead of spreading it, rolled it flat and roughly square, then filled it with a mix of mozzarella, hot pepper jack cheese and pepperoni slices. I let it proof for about 30 minutes, then baked it on parchment at 375 for half an hour.

Great for a Sunday football brunch. Only bad thing was that New Orleans creamed the Eagles ... oh well, there's always next week.

Stan Ginsberg
www.nybakers.com

I recently made PR's Neo-Neapolitan Pizza Dough which is perfection by the way...alas, I can not get this crust to brown.  It cooks just fine (not raw/gummy) and is chewy, crispy, flavorful,...but no color whatsoever. What am I doing wrong?

I use a pizza stone on the next to lowest/bottom rack. My oven has preheated on 450 for over an hour (scared to crank it to 500, oven is so old). When making the dough, I added an additional tablespoon of sugar. What gives????

This past week I ordered some flour from one of our members (Stan) and am so happy with the service and the product he provided me. I ordered some of his Caputo 00 Pizza Flour to try in my little high heat pizza oven. I made a few pizzas today and I have to say this flour is amazing, the crust is crispy on the bottom and soft, tender inside and at the rim. It was one of the most supple doughs I have ever worked with, I was able to stretch it thin enough to read thru and it never tore........amazing! If you are one who loves pizza I would heartily rec you get some of this flour and give it a try, it is made for high heat and I would imagine it would be great to use in a wood burning oven. I am going to try to attach some pics.  Mattie

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q314/mattie405/PizzawithTipo00Flour001.jpg

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q314/mattie405/PizzawithTipo00Flour008.jpg