My son wants pizza.  I can't say no to him. He is so flippin' cute. He also thinks my pizza is better than anything from a pizza place. So, I can't say no. Plus it gives me a good reason to make some dough.  This recipe comes from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.  The recipe is at the end, if you want to try it. I spent lots of time testing recipe after recipe and found that this one makes a nice, stretchy dough.  I tweeked it a bit.

I tried something new with this batch of dough. I let the machine go for 5 minutes, then let it rest for 5, then turned the machine on for 5 more minutes. I have to say it came out nice and silky.

After about 45 minutes on the counter, I shoved it in the fridge for about 1 more hour.  I did this because I had to run an errand.  Pizza dough is forgiving, so no worries.  The most amazing thing happened, the dough became super elastic.  I stretched one so thin, I think it only had one side. THIN CRUST HERE I COME!

They are like pretty little maids in a row.  I let them rest on the counter to warm up.  Cold dough is hard to stretch.   My wife likes her pizza thick, I am kind of a purest when it comes to pizza. I prefer napolitian style pizza, so I have a happy medium that even the kids love.

I found that if I don't run the docking wheel over it I get ginormous bubbles and everything slides off.  That looks cool, but my stone and oven become a big ol' mess. 

I just top it with a quick and simple pizza sauce and some mozzerella/provolone mix  - Into the oven with you!

This goes in...

This comes out!

I love pizza!

Basic Pizza Dough (from America's Test Kitchen)

4  1/2 c. bread flour

1 envelope yeast

1  1/2 t. salt

2 T. olive oil - (the better the oil, the better the flavor of the crust.)

1  3/4 c. warm water (I use bottled water. I don't know if that makes any difference, Ask a New Yorker.)

It's all dump and go from here. Try out the 5-5-5 method for yourself (it's in the blog.) don't forget to stick it in the fridge for at least an hour.  I plan on trying it over night to see what happens.  I will update if it is good.

Last week I had the idea to make some sticky buns on my days off, not only because I enjoy them and have them so seldom, but also I wanted to contribute something to this long neglected blog of mine on TFL. The problem was I wanted to do something a bit different from the usual cinnamon and walnut/pecan variety of sticky bun. Often a flavour combination will come to me right away, but not this time, so I put it on the back burner knowing I'd eventually come up with something promising. Earlier this week I hit upon the idea of using pineapple in the buns, inspired by memories of one of my childhood favourites, the classic Pineapple Upside-down Cake, with it's delicious combination of caramelized sugar and pineapple. As far as a different type of nut to use, macadamia nuts were my first choice for their lovely subtle flavour and texture, and with ginger replacing cinnamon for the spice component of the buns. The dough itself is based largely on the Sweet Roll Dough from AB&P, but using whole milk instead of powdered , and increasing the percentage of yeast, as the osmotolerant yeast called for in the AB&P formula isn't readily available to me. Instead, I used the percentage (6.6%) that Jan Hedh calls for in his Sweet Bread formula from 'Swedish Breads & Pastries' . All of the formulas will be included in links below for anyone who'd like to try this variation on an old favourite for themselves.

Procedure:

The makeup is similar to sticky cinnamon buns , but you will need some rings of tinned or fresh pineapple as well as some chunks for the the filling. The rings are cut in half, each half going into a small foil tart pan that's been smeared liberally with Sticky Bun Glaze. Place a half maraschino cherry cut side up, inside the inner semicircle of the pineapple and sprinkle some chopped nuts on the other half of the foil.

This can be prepared while the dough is chilling in the fridge. When the dough is well chilled it can be rolled out to a thickness of 3mm/1/8in and approximately 41cm/16in wide. Brush the entire piece of dough with some of the syrup reserved from the pineapple, or water, then sprinkle the ginger sugar evenly over the entire dough except for the bottom 50mm/2in . Apply small chunks of pineapple and chopped nuts over top of the sugar so that the dough is evenly covered to the borders.

Roll the dough up as you would for cinnamon rolls.

and slice into 115gram pieces, placing each in the prepared foil pans. Let rise for 45-60 minutes at room temperature and place 4-6 foil pans on a sheet pan at a time per bake, keeping the others in the fridge, and bake in a preheated 385F oven for 20-25 minutes. Once the buns have a light to medium brown colour remove them from the oven and turn them upsidedown onto parchment paper.

Note: Please be careful when doing this, using gloves or tongs to prevent a hot sugar burn.

Allow to cool for 1hr or longer before serving. This is easier said than done apparently in my case, since I was only able to last about 40 minutes before trying one out. The buns have a beautiful soft crumb that soaks up just enough of the glaze to impart the caramel flavour in every bite. It's everything you'd expect from a sticky bun and a nice variation on a traditional favourite.

Below are the links to the recipes used . The first is for the Sticky Bun Glaze, the second for the Sweet Bun Dough

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JwgUSohf6Bu0JbjBuUHfG3JeFfebCX0qd4COlbEz6ag/edit?hl=en&authkey=CJjpy74B

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nlQFe1H7lz_CDKfcfnLuBKmRW8Bs3DEJbgk7a_n_NhI/edit?hl=en&authkey=CKCOsJwB

Cheers,

Franko

I had three very ripe bananas to use up so I was looking around for a banana bread recipe that did not call for a lot of sugar or butter. I found an amazing looking recipe on King Arthur Flour's website for Banana Pina Colada Muffins (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/banana-pia-colada-muffins-recipe). These muffins were beautiful; banana batter studded with dried pineapple chunks, topped off with a delightful shredded coconut crown. My only problem was I didn't have any butter so I kept searching until I found a recipe for Island Banana Bread on Vegetarian Times website (http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes/9044?section=). This one is vegan but I decided to alter it to suit my tastes. The following recipe is a fusion of the two differen recipes into my own very own Island Banana Bread:

Ingredients

2 c. White Whole Wheat Flour

1/4 c. Soy Flour

2 tbsp. Dried Buttermilk Powder

1 tsp. Baking Powder

1 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Sea Salt

1/4 tsp. Nutmeg

1 c. Diced Dried Pineapple (or other dried fruit: dates, apricots, etc.)

1/2 c. Raisin Puree (or prune puree)

1 1/2 c. Mashed Ripe Bananas

1/2 c. Packed Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp. Rum

3/4 c. Orange Juice

1/3 c. Shredded Coconut

Great recipe from Bon Apetit Oct 2008 pgs 131 &133 Great for the holiday season

This is a pumpkin gingerbread pineapple upside down cake from Bon Apetit Oct 2008 pages 131 and 133. Its easy and delicious

1st starter. So I've got a white flour starter (14 days old today) that I've been building for some time now. It smells good, with the occaional 'berry smell'. When I feed, I'll keep half old starter (stirred well) and half white flour, with spring water. Well, I will only see about 30 percent rise. But everytime I use pineapple juice instead of water to re-feed, it will double in volume at around the 7 hour mark. If I go back to plain spring water, it only raises 30%. Strangely enough, I don't get any 'houch' from this starter.