Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza

This is my first attempt at Chicago style deep dish pizza. I found an authentic recipe I am excited to share:

Crust:

1 1/2 packages yeast

1/2 Cup warm water

1 Tbsp. Sugar

3 1/2 Cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 tsp Salt

1/2 Cup Cornmeal

1/4 Cup vegetable oil

1/2 Cup water

Mix the warm water, yeast and sugar together and set aside for the yeast to bloom. Add the rest of the ingredients to the mixing bowl. Finally add the yeast/water mixture and kneed it to window pane.

Sauce: 1 28 oz Can 6-1 Brand tomatoes

2 Tbsp. fresh chopped basil

1 tsp Oregano

Salt to taste.

As my family happens to be fans of garlic and spicy food, we added a bit of Frank's Red Hot and about a tablespoon of minced garlic. After finishing the Pizza, my husband recommended adding some sugar as well to the sauce. Once again, all of these add-ins are to taste and your personal preferences.

The key to this sauce is the 6-1 Brand tomatoes-according to my source this is the brand of tomatoes that are used all over Chicagoland. I would agree it made a difference.

Add all the ingredients together and stir, set aside.

Let the dough sit at room temperature until it doubles. Once the dough is doubled kneed it for 2 minutes. Put it in a 14" round pizza pan. Be sure to oil the pan. Let the dough ball rest for 10 minutes.

Using your hand form the dough into the pan.

Once the dough is formed use a fork to dock the dough

Bake the dough at 475 F. for 4 minutes to set the dough. Brush the dough with olive oil.

Cover the bottom of the dough with sliced mozzerella

Next add the toppings-I used pepperoni that is purchased at a local Italian speciality store...Fraboni's.

Cover the pizza with some shredded mozerella cheese.

Add the sauce.

We also added some grated parmesan to the top of the pizza.

Bake the pizza the first 5 minutes at 475 on the very bottom shelf of the oven to get the crust really crisp. After 5 minutes move the pizza to the middle shelf and bake for 30 minutes.

BBA Challenge: Pane Siciliano

This weeks challenge was Pane Siciliano. It takes 3 days to make this. First you make a pate fermentee. The next day you mix the dough and add the pate fermentee. The third day you form it. As you can see from the pictures the dough really grows. I think I could have not had all 3 on the same baking sheet for when I make this again. I still like the basic french bread best so far. Check out other attempts of Pane Siciliano at our host's website: http://www.akuindeed.com/

BBA Challenge: Pain de Campagne

This week I made Pain de Campagne. I made the pate fermentee a few days ago. I left it in my refridgerator to proof. I brought it out and let it come to room temperature and cut it into 10 pieces. I then added it to the other ingredients in the mixing bowl. I mixed it together and did much hand kneeding also and let it proof in an oiled bowl.

I cut the dough into 3 pieces and decided to do the tradtion bread form called Fendu which means split bread.

I formed a baguette

I put a dowel into the dough

I floured the inside of the cut and repeated the process one more time.

I flipped the bread over to proof. I put it on floured parchment paper.

Once the bread proofed I flipped it back over and baked it on a stone.

The flavor was OK but was not as wow as when we did the French Bread. Thank you Chris from http://www.akuindeed.com/ for hosting our challenges.

BBA Challenge: Light Wheat Bread

I did this challenge on a very hot day. The heat index was over 100 degree's. I thought I would see what happened when I proofed my dough outside. I had to add about 3/4 cup extra water to this recipe. I have a technique problem with this recipe. In the book all ingredients are added at one and mixed and we are told to add more water when needed. The thing is it is hard to get more water into already formed dough. I feel the better technique would be to hold back flour and slowly add the last 2 cups so that the dough could be more controlled. The dough was very stiff and I think that caused the tight crumb. The flavor was nice though. Thank you Chris from http://www.akuindeed.com for hosting our challenges.

I added some melted butter to the top of the loaf as soon as it came out of the oven.

Wedding Cakes from the 1990's

What's old is new again. All these cakes are from the 1990's. I love to bake from scratch using the best chocolates, real Wisconsin butter, and King Arthur flour...just to name a few ingredients.

Popular cake flavors:
Lemon Ambrosia-lemon cake with homemade lemon curd filling topped with seasonal fresh fruit and Italian buttercream.

Chocolate anything-chocolate cake and fill with chocolate ganache or flavored buttercreams, any sort of fruit-the sky is the limit.

Mocha Spice-a coffee spiced cake with a nice mocha buttercream. Garnish with coffee beans.

Carrot Cake-I have 2 versions-one classic and one with apricots, golden raisins and pecans. Both frosted witha cream cheese frosting.

Yellow and White Cakes-I spent 15 years hunting down the best recipe and I found it!!!! Mix and match these cake flavors with anything.

Tropical Orange-Orange cake filled with fresh orange curd, strawberries, banana's and pineapple frosted with a coconut buttercream and garnish with toasted coconut.

The beauty of scratch cake is you can really do any flavor you can imagine-these are just the popular flavors!!!

cookies and bars

These were cookies and bars I made for a ladies luncheon at Church for Mother's Day. I have over 300 pieces. I was surprised that I was able to get this many cookies done faster and less cost than baking a cake. A good way to get filler is to make big pans of bars. As a baker I have 12x18 sheet pans which I used and I also used a 14" square pan. The flavors are:

Brownies

Lemon Bars

Carmelita's

Chocolate Chip cookies with walnuts

Peanut Butter Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

The best place for these sort of recipes-well don't mess with the classics. The Nestle Tollhouse recipe, the recipe on the jar of Jif Peanut Butter, the recipe on the oats and so on. While some bakers strive to make something original and their own they loose sight of the classics. If a recipe is not broke-don't fix it!!! The key-use the best ingredients-butter, good chocolate etc. and stick to the classic recipes when it comes to cookies-these recipes have been tested thru out the generations!!!