Pizza Night

          Even before I was making "good" pizza dough, and perhaps even before I was born, we have had a family tradition of making Pizza on Sunday nights during the winter. The oven's heat is a welcome addition to the kitchen, and laughter and voices fill the kitchen as pies are loaded and removed from the oven. The quality of the pizza has improved a lot since I started making the crust though, all modesty aside!

          Right now, snow is trickling gently down outside and my pizza dough is fermenting while an autolyse that will become Levains a-la-Gerard is staying warm on top of the preheating oven. Music wafts into the kitchen from the stero and my mother is sitting on our brown chair with our cat on her lap, while my dad is roasting coffee and cupping. It is all very pleasant, not least for the pizza dough, which is zooming along a little too quickly! 

          Today's pizza dough is 70% wholewheat and is leavened with a mixture of young levain and yeast. I mixed it using the slap-and-fold method and then a bassinage (addition of Salt and water at the end of the mix). It felt a little slack, but over time it sucked up water and developed nicely and now I'm worried about my ability to stretch it without tearing! Next time, I will do an autolyse first to gauge hydration better. Also up for today are some breads made with Rubaud's flour blend and levain (I used salt in the levain, too, just like Gerard. The flours aren't freshly milled, though, so he would probably take umbrage at any connection to his bread!). I will mix those soon. And as a bonus, some pics of the crumbs from some of my recent bakes (country, oat/spelt levain, 100% wholewheat and 80% rye with rye chops).

Country (l) and Oat-Spelt (r)

100% Wholewheat 

80% Rye with Rye Chops

Happy Baking,

Walker