The Fresh Loaf

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Halloween Pizza and Lucy on a Pumpkin

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Halloween Pizza and Lucy on a Pumpkin

This was a special Halloween.  It has been years since our daughter was home for one.  The last time she was here we carved a Chi Oh Owl Pumpkin.  This time we put Lucy on Pumpkin.  It scared the heck out of her too!

We have a tradition of having homemade pizza for All Hallows Eve too.  This time I managed to sneak in 2 g of NMNF rye starter in with a pinch of instant yeast to make the dough.  The rest of the recipe was a bit different.  No preferment, a bit of honey and olive oil, 48 hours in the fridge after 2 hours of gluten development with a bit of garlic, sun dried tomato and rosemary in the dough - as per our usual.

We made our usual spicy pizza sauce.  The toppings were hot Italian sausage, pepperoni, caramelized onion and caramelized crimini mushrooms to go with some Manchego, mozzarella. ricotta and Parmesan cheeses and some fresh basil for garnish.  So, it was a simple pizza for once.

The dough really puffed itself up in the fridge and it easy enough to spread out into a pizza shape since the flour was half AP and half bread flour at 70% hydration.  The oven was preheated to 550 F, the pizzas baked on the bottom stone and the top stone was lowered down to get as much heat on the top as possible.

The dough browned up nicely top and bottom and the pizzas came out crispy as could be – no soggy, fold over pizza is ever allowed In Lucy’s Pizzeria.  It was yummy to boo.  The girls couldn’t decide if they liked this crust better than the one last time but as soon as I told them that this on had sourdough in it they both side last time was better!

I thought both were pretty good.  Everyone enjoyed Lucy on a Pumpkin too!  We had a great Halloween…… which is judged by how much candy is left over – we have plenty of our favorites including a new one – dark chocolate Kit Cats and pumpkin shaped Reese’s.

Lucy reminds us to make sure to have a salad with that pizza!

Comments

hreik's picture
hreik

Looks delicious.  Just lovely.

hester

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

Brownman food pyramid..... in a class all its own!  Delicious it was!  Glad you liked it Hester.   

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Max and Lexi dressed up like Pumpkins a few years ago but they are now very upset that I didn't immortalize them like Lucy on a pumpkin!

That pizza looks fantastic with all of those delicious toppings and perfect crust.  I have some steaks grilling tonight along with some baby purple potatoes and grilled bread but I would trade that for your pizza for sure!

Happy Baking and glad you had a perfect Halloween!

 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

the girls seem to think pizza is better.  I think they are off the mark unless it is a steak pizza.  Tough to beat a good steak, but glad they do like pizza better.  Steak is getting prohibitive price wise for many people!  Thank goodness we can still get hamburger without breaking the bank.  Lucy predicts that half the world will be vegetarians before long - at least most of the time.  It might be time to start raising cattle on that Island you live on:-)

 Who thought Lucy would fit on a punkin' with that long body of hers.  My daughter and I ha a fun time getting her on there and all lit up.  Lucy says to tell the black ones they will get on one some day!

Happy baking Ian 

Wow! the very next day, Albertson's had bone in choice NY strip steaks on sale for $3.60 a pound with the 10% senior discount on the first Wednesday of every month - so we had steaks last night for the first time in about forever - Yea!

Isand66's picture
Isand66

Wow!  That's some cheap steak.  I hope it tasted like a $20 per pound one :0.

We got our at Stu Leonards which normally is very expensive but they always have something on sale.  I think the ones we bought were around $5.99 per Lb. which is still pretty good and they tasted great.

I'm baking an apple rye tonight with walnuts.  Hopefully it will come out as good as it smells!

Danni3ll3's picture
Danni3ll3

I had. Oh Yum!!! Looks absolutely delicious!

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

time.  Odd how Lucy has stretched it out to a 3 day process and how hard traditions are to break.  I wanted to make a fresh pizza with fresh toppings but my daughter had to have caramelized onions and mushrooms or it just wouldn't be pizza.... and the sauce had to have spinach in it...Jeeze!  Nothing much new would happen if you didn't sneak it in..... like the SD:-)

Glad you liked it Danni and happy baking  

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Lucy on the pumpkin, must be hard to carve.  That crust looks perfectly browned!  The toppings make my stomach rumble! Thinking of you guys.  Now back to work. Bye!

Yippee

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

sure but some of the carvings people do are real pieces of art and crazy hard.  They go after them with Dremil, surgeon's and dental tools:-)  Some of the competitions pay big money.  We will stick to something we might be able to do.  Lucy was about as hard as we want to get otherwise it would be work and you know we do not do any work, for any reason at any time:-)

The crust came out very nice this time.  It actually crunched when you bit into it.  Glad you liked the pizza and now get back to work!  Happy baking Yippee!

PalwithnoovenP's picture
PalwithnoovenP

It looks super festive and delicious! My favorite pizza topping is pineapple, is it weird? It's sweetness and tartness goes well and complements the other meats, veggies, and cheeses. I love your pizzas with flavored crusts.

I wonder what Lucy felt when she saw the carving? :-)

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

the UK is Pineapple, green pepper and Canadian bacon - so pineapple isn't that weird especially for that sweet tooth of yours.  It is the flavored crust that makes the pizza but don't tell anyone.  If I tried to leave it out, there would be a palace revolt and the girls would end up in the dungeon...... with Lucy!

She barked at herself but she barked at the owl too...... and all the kids and everything else, all the time - just like she does for anything new and since she can't remember anything, everything is always new to her.  So we don't know what she was thinking but we suspect it had to be pretty  weird, stupid or dangerous and maybe all three!

Glad you liked the pizza Job!  Happy Wood Fired Baking 

Ru007's picture
Ru007

Must have been delicious :) Garlic, rosemary and sundried tomato in the dough, must make the crust extra tasty! I remember you mentioned that the dough for the italian loaf i made from your recipe, would make a good pizza dough, now i definitely have to try it! 

The salad looks yummy too! 

Happy baking Dab! 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

dough:-)  It makes fab focaccia and ciabatta especially with YW and SD mix like this one.  Guess what I am making this week since I refreshed my YW today and had a bunch of very old retarded YW on hand that I just couldn't throw away.  I'm giving the YW levain am n 8 hour head start before I I add the 2 g of NMNF starter to it and then 48 hours in the fridge it goes.  It will make great garlic bread .....not that all garlic bread isn't great:-) 

We make a killer salad every night and by Thanksgiving we might even have our own greens and cherry tomatoes to put in it.

Glad you liked the pizza and happy baking Ru!

Skibum's picture
Skibum

Just beautiful and my mouth waters at your choice of toppings. I found a small bag of 00 flour at the grocery store and made my first pizza dough with it. Much more extensible than the strong bread flour I normally bake with and made a great crust.

Happy baking! Ski

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

mix of AP and a bit of bread flour.  00 is a very weak flour when it comes to gluten compared to US or your Canadian flour,  so it works great for pizza.  The pizza is all about crust, sauce and toppings and that is what ewe go for every time. It is like Gumbo is about the roux, trinity, sausage and shrimp.  What ever the dish is about you want to make sure that that part is the best it can be.  With bread it is just flour, water, salt, SD so no skimping on them if you want to make decent bread you would serve to guests.

I bet your pizza is grand Ski.  Happy baking 

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

she would not stop barking at all the kids ringing the door bell.  She too is afraid of a ll fireworks, thunder, gunfire and zombies for some reason.  The pizza was great for the goblins and ghouls and the rest of us.

Glad you liked it and happy baking CM