Baking And Making Homemade

I may not write about it all the time, but I'm still enjoying baking as much as ever.  I'm looking at being able to make more things here at home rather than buying at a bakery or grocery store.  And I'm finding how simple much of it is.

I now have three very good pizza dough recipes that I make every so often, which has very much lessened ordering out and I can't remember the last time we even thought about buying a frozen pizza.  A thin crust recipe that uses fine 00 pizza flour to make four dough balls that I make ahead and freeze.  A pan pizza dough that is similar to a focaccia that I make ahead and can wait in the refrigerator for 12-72 hours before baking.  And the newest is similar to a hand-tossed crust, uses course-ground semolina flour and sits in the refrigerator for a day before baking.  

Any of the pizza doughs I can add King Arthur's Pizza Dough Flavor, which is basically cheddar cheese powder with salt, onion and garlic powder and a few other things.  I did get some plain cheddar cheese powder, which is much cheaper, so I can make my own soon if I wish.  KA also sells a Pizza seasoning that can be sprinkled on pizza, but also makes a very good pizza sauce, that I've made many times, with crushed tomatoes, garlic and olive oil.

I bake them (not pan) on a pizza stone and peel that we've had for a long time and stopped using for some reason, but now it gets a whole lot of use.  We've definitely stepped up our home made pizza game in a huge way.  I could put a pizza picture here, but I have a feeling that will be its own post someday with more detail on all three crusts.

I had also been thinking about making my own tortillas as we do often enjoy Mexican food at home.  I've already made my own homemade taco sauce a few times now.  Just tomato sauce and spices we already had in the cupboard.  On a recent day off I decided to give tortillas a try.  It was unbelievably simple.  For the fat you can use oil, lard, shortening or butter.  We normally have oil and butter in the house, so I tried with oil but will try butter next time.  I rolled them out, a bit too thin, and dry fried them on the stove.  They turned out pretty good for a first try, enough for me to buy a tortilla press for my next batch.  I can see these becoming a staple in this household soon.

I still make baguette often enough to keep some available in the freezer, but I've been making baguette the longest and have written about it often here.  My go-to recipe has changed a bit, as has my technique.  I no longer care about making 16 inch versions of a French baguette and am more concerned about taste and form for our uses.

And it had been a while, but I made a couple batches of cheese pennies yesterday.  Cheese pennies are a fun snack, so I made a roll of parmesan and a roll of sharp cheddar - with added cheese powder.  So tasty.  This pan pictured was pretty much dinner last night, along with a loaf of what I'll write about next.  These could have used another minute or two in the oven, but still good.

I made glass bread (Pan de Cristal) yesterday.  I had made it once before, but I was a less experienced baker then.  This was before I got a baking stone so they were baked on the round pizza stone and also I overcooked them.  I know I wrote about it here, I'm just too lazy to look it up to link.  Glass bread is a 100% hydration bread, so the dough starts out like pancake batter and is very delicate.  Big bubbles form in the crumb making the bread so light and airy.  I wish I could get more of that in my baguette - maybe someday.

The glass bread dough gets stronger through coil folds and time, with the last resting period about 2 hours before going in the oven.  This made 4 loaves, three of which went into the freezer.  Mine may be slightly less done than usual, but that was on purpose so we can throw one in the oven for 5-10 minutes sometime and have it taste like fresh.  I suppose you could make a sandwich out  of it if you cut it the long way like a bun, but as far as I'm concerned it's a wonderful snacking bread.

I skipped over a lot of details here for brevity, but the details do change as I go.  Many are a combination of flours, like the 00 recipe I use half AP flour, etc., and the ratio may change on my whim.  As may the hydration percent I use in some doughs.  My tools, techniques and dough handling have also improved a lot since I started baking a few years ago.

I get great satisfaction from making these thing at home rather than buying them, though my wife would tell you I'm never satisfied.  I'm getting there, I just like trying to improve whatever I'm making every time I make it.  We all need something, right?