End of Year Baking: Pizza, Bear Claws, Dutch Crunch Rolls and Bagels
It’s been a few weeks since I posted about my baking adventures—there hasn’t been much new and I’ve been busy getting my work life in order for vacation and then vacationing.
A couple weeks ago I started my experiments with the pizza dough recipe from Pizzetta 211 (http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/26335/furtherance-my-pizza-education [1]). So far so good, but nowhere near as good as the restaurant’s. The 30 minute machine kneading gives this dough a good balance of elasticity and extensibility. I think what I need to work on is the shaping. To get the piece to 11 inches without overhandling takes a gentle touch and patience. This one is topped with homemade sausage, caramelized onions with balsamico and radicchio.
With a house full of holiday visitors the last week, I sorta put my semi-sensible diet on hold. The leftover Christmas rib roast cried out to be sliced thin, barbecue-sauced and slapped on some Dutch Crunch rolls. And I haven’t the heart to ignore a crying rib roast. These were from Reinhart’s BBA formula for Vienna Bread (with thanks to Brother David for emailing me the formula since I left that book at home).
Then, another try at my favorite Bear Claws, using the Cream Cheese Short Dough and the Bear Claw filling recipe and procedures from Inside the Jewish Bakery.
Then the last couple days I’ve baked bagels, using the Krakowski formula from Stan, but ordinary bagel shaping. Monday night, I made one-and-a-half the volume of dough in the formula and made 20 bagels on two sheet pans. Them I boiled and baked 10 yesterday morning and 10 this morning. I can now tell you that leaving the uncooked bagels in the fridge for 36 hours does no major harm. Today’s batch was delicious. The only difference is there are some bigger holes in the crumb, so the thing was not quite as chewy.
Before the year is out, I plan to find a Hamelman hearth bread formula I haven’t made before; need some crusty bread to accompany Salmon Chowder made from local fish.
Happy Holidays to all.
Glenn