Pizza, Pizza!

If you were to make a frozen pizza most people would conjure-up an image of a fully-assembled frozen pizza that they could pop in the oven. That’s how it’s done. 

In our household it means thawing-out a frozen ball of pizza dough, a half jar of leftover sauce and a single-serving pack of pizza sausage.  Olives, shrooms, whole-milk mozz and the rest are basically pantry items.  Which is because I’ve likely made (and ruined) more pizzas in my lifetime than any of my acquaintances; combined. 

 

Anyway, dinner tonight started with pre-heating the oven, and stone, to 550F, rolling-out a 300g sourdough really thin, topping it with leftover sauce, fresh cheese, mushrooms, black olives and a sprinkle of Penzey’s Italian seasoning. 

 

 

8-9 minutes later this crispy, cracker-crust-crunchy pizza is served. 

 

Anybody that lives on the peninsula is likely aware there’s a knockdown trademark war escalating between a couple of local pizzerias. Fortunately, I’m self-sufficient and can rise above the fray. 

Forno season is nigh and my pizzas are better anyway….

How To Make Sourdough Rye

In my continued hiatus from the chaos that passes as news nowadays, on Sunday I performed an experimental bake.  Before bedtime on Saturday I mixed my flours, salt and a slurry of starter/water into a sticky dough. Stretched (not kneaded) and formed a ball. 

By sunrise I had a nicely-proofed dough.  Turned it out stretched it 8X and formed a ball to raise 4-5 hours while doggo and I did chores. 

 

Baked it an hour.

My first sourdough rye. 

If you like sourdough bread in a rye variation this turned-out amazing - and scary to get it right on the first try.  Needs Nueske's liver pate or Usinger's braunschweiger.  Naturally, raw beef and onions or pastrami works too.  

Sourdough Bread 

 

Starting the bread:

Start to finish about 12-16 hours - mostly overnight. Hands-on time is less than 1 hour.

385g water

90g starter

520g flour  (100g whole wheat or rye flour and 420g high protein bread flour = 520g total) 

                    I prefer King Arthur flours

12g table salt

For rye loaf - caraway seed to taste (optional) 

 

Mix water with starter to make a slurry. Whisk the two flours together with the salt and add the slurry. Mix everything by hand or a plastic dough spatula. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

 

Stretching the bread:

Stretch and fold eight times. Rest 15 minute intervals. Perform this three times over 45 minutes. Form a ball with your dough, place in a bowl, cover and let it rest overnight (8-10 hours) at room temperature until doubled in size. If it is warmer this may take only 6-8 hours. Wet hands are non-stick. Resist any impulse to fold and knead on the countertop. I like to finish this step before bedtime.

 

Forming the loaf:

I like to start this step after rising first thing in the morning. Dump the dough out onto a floured counter. Cover with a bowl and let it rest ½ hour. With wet hands stretch and fold the dough forming a round loaf. Place on a floured towel in a bowl seam side up. Cover and allow to rest for 1-4 hours.

 

Baking the loaf:

30 minutes before baking allow a cast iron pot and lid to preheat in a 450F oven. Tip the towel-lined loaf from the bowl into parchment paper-lined cast iron. Slash and bake covered for 40 minutes at a reduced 425F. At the 40 minute interval remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes at 375F (uncovered). 

 

at 40 minute mark remove the cast iron pot

 

Total bake time is 60 minutes. Remove loaf to a wire rack and allow to rest at room temperature.

 

DO NOT give in to any urge to cut the loaf before it has cooled.

 

After it has cooled you can place the loaf cut side down on a cutting board for up to a day before bagging in plastic. Sourdough bread is naturally resistant to turning stale; if it lasts that long anyway.

 

Pro Tips: This sourdough bread is a very forgiving bake; don’t feel like you’re a slave to pinpoint timing. Nevertheless, weights and measures must be precise. Pull and fold your dough like taffy. Do not knead it on a countertop.

 

More photos and instructions here. Or type: sourdough in the search tool in the upper left corner of the home page.

Gentlemen - Start Your Ovens

Good Monday morning friends. 

My Friday ritual is to feed my sourdough starters.

With freezing temperatures across the land it is opportunities like this that call for baking. You know, if you can’t stand the cold; stay in the kitchen. 

 
At Friday bedtime I set this handmade dough ball of future sourdough breadness on the counter (covered) to proof overnight.  Arising on Saturday....

At the time of another pipe freezing sunrise there was this. 

This recipe is from a sourdough baking class and is a reasonably fool-proof bake. Step-by-step illustrated instructions as follows:

Sourdough Bread

Making Pat’s Sourdough Bread at Home: 

Pat is from the neighboring town of Algoma. The starter I received as a gift to the class participants can be traced over the years through Pat’s sister in Michigan, to her daughter in NYC, to her friend Laurent Gras*, a Michelin starred chef from France. I received a gift of a 40-year-old starter that began its life in France.  Here’s how to keep it going.

Feeding the starter:

120g water

100g old starter

100g flour (10g rye flour and 90g high protein bread flour)

 

(Any discarded starter is used for baking) 

 

double in volume

Whisk the water and starter to make a slurry. Add flour and whisk until lumps have dissolved. Pour into a quart mason jar and set on the counter at room temperature. The starter should double in volume. Then settle down to its original level. After 24 hours, refrigerate.  I use a Mason “Pickle Pipe” (fermentation airlock) to seal my jars. 

Starter can live in the fridge for approximately 7 days. Feed once a week. For more sour flavor use starter that has been refrigerated 4-6 days.  If you keep your starter in the garage beer fridge like I do I’ve learned it will keep for up to three weeks without feeding while we’re away traveling.   Lastly, I keep frozen batches of both my starters in a basement chest freezer as a backup against loss.  

Starting the bread:

Start to finish about 12-16 hours - mostly overnight.  Hands-on time is less than 1 hour.

385g water

90g starter

520g flour (100g whole wheat and 420g high protein bread flour)

12g table salt (to be added later)

Mix water with starter to make a slurry.  Whisk the two flours together and add to the slurry.  Mix everything by hand or a plastic bowl scraper.  Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

Stretching the bread:

Stretch and fold eight times. Rest another 15 minutes. Sprinkle half the salt on the dough then stretch and fold 8 times. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Sprinkle the dough with the remaining salt and stretch and fold 8 times. Cover the dough and let it rest overnight (8-10 hours) at room temperature (68-70 F) until doubled in size. If it is warmer this may take 6-8 hours. Wet hands are non-stick.  

 

Note:  The stretch, fold and rest process is three times.  Resist any impulse to fold and knead on the countertop. I like to finish this step before bedtime. (top photo)

Forming the loaf:

First thing in the morning after the dough and I have risen is this step.  Start the coffee and dump the dough out onto a floured counter. Cover with a bowl and let it rest ½ hour. With wet hands stretch and fold the dough forming a round loaf. Place on a floured towel and place in a bowl seam side up. Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 1-4 hours. (It is cold enough this time of year to leave it on the kitchen countertop)

 

Drink coffee 

Baking the loaf:

45 minutes before baking allow the cast iron pot and lid to preheat in a 450 oven. Tip the towel-lined loaf from the bowl into parchment paper-lined cast iron. Slash and bake covered for 40 minutes at a reduced 425.  At the 40 minute interval remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes at 375 (uncovered).  Total bake time is 60 minutes.  Remove loaf to a wire rack and allow to rest at room temperature.

  

slash

cover

40 minutes at 425F covered - uncover and 20 additional minutes at 375F

cool on wire rack

DO NOT give in to any urge to cut the loaf before it has cooled!  After it has cooled you can place the loaf cut side down on a cutting board for up to a day before bagging in plastic.  Sourdough bread is naturally resistant to turning stale; if it lasts that long anyway.

Pro Tip: This sourdough bread is a very forgiving bake; don’t feel like you’re a slave to pinpoint timing.  Nevertheless, weights and measures must be precise.  Pull and fold your dough like taffy.  Do not knead it on a countertop.

Once upon a time my whole wheat flour had turned so I tossed it out.  Substituting 100g of all-purpose flour resulted in a fine result.

If you care to introduce all the salt to the dry flours before mixing I could not detect any detrimental effect to the loaf.  This saves a step in the stretching and folding process.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurent_Gras_(chef).  As of 01.24.26 the starter is now 44 years of age.

Game Day Pizza

 

After feeding my sourdough starters a couple days ago it occurred to me to me to make pizza dough - four 320g balls.

Froze two (an experiment) and proofed the other two for a halftime pie and one more for snacking this week.

At 15F and falling the outdoor brick oven is a non starter.  Nevertheless, the bottom convection oven on the new GE range will get up to 550F and bake a pie on the pizza stone in 10 minutes, give or take.

From bottom up: homemade hand-tossed sourdough crust, Rao’s imported Italian pizza sauce, locally-sourced whole milk mozz, topped with Becco’s Italian sausage, fresh shrooms, black olives, fresh basil from Columbia and a drizzle of EVO.

Behold the CSMO - aka the Milwaukee Special.

Nixon for the DAGGER.

The Bears still suck...
 

Breakfast For Dinner

Breakfast for dinner.  A couple nights ago.

Homemade, sourdough buttermilk pancakes accompanied by Marchant’s breakfast porkies and local maple syrup. 

BTW - the sourdough starter I’m using is from France, via a Michelin-starred chef in NYC, to Michigan, then Algoma to finally land in my kitchen. It’s about 20+ years old and enjoys pedigree and provenance. 

It’s primarily used for pizza dough but leavens a terrific loaf of bread and the best pancakes on the planet.  

Pretty good chow if you can get it. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

You Say Tomato; I Say Tomato

Recent travel to visit with family found us in Mobile Alabama for a week with an opportunity to become temporary Mobilians and soak-up family time, history, food and ambiance of this coastal city.

From the neighborhood Farm Market there were fresh, vine-ripened tomatoes. Big ones too. 

 

Daughter fried-up some of her homemade smoked bacon to fashion toasted sourdough BLTs.

 

 

My own tomato plants are looking good but we're nowhere close to sandwiches....

Indoor Pizza

Most of you readers know that we use our wood-fired brick oven to cook outdoors during the more pleasant months of the year.  This time of year we'll fire it up if we score a day above freezing and especially during daylight hours.  Baking or roasting in the dark at 20F is not appealing at all.

Recently we hosted guests for the weekend and one of the requests was for homemade pizzas.

So I prepared a batch of sourdough crust balls to undergo a cold fermentation in the garage fridge and prepped everything else with the exception of the firing the forno.  Too dang cold and I was disinclined to be traipsing from oven to house and back in the dark while balancing a pizza peel. 

So I used the new GE Profile range that I've been becoming accustomed-to .  

The bottom oven has a pizza stone and I can preheat it to 550F which will bake a fresh pizza in about 10 minutes - give or take.

And I never had to leave the comfort of my own kitchen.

Pizza!  Pizza!

The Garden Chronicles

If you are a San Marzano tomato snob you likely already know that a purebred San Marzano tomato is grown in the rich, volcanic soil in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.

This year I’ve sourced my San Marzanos from a mutant plant that has overgrown the composter.  

A very robust volunteer from 2023 garden waste.

I collected enough fruits to can and foolishly imagined a dozen half pints.

Here is my harvest.

Four half pints.

Tomatoes and cracked Spanish sea salt. That’s it.

On a foundation of my sourdough crust this is the foundation of a real Neapolitan pie….
 

Let There Be Bread

Having weekend guests we naturally tossed pizzas in the Forno followed the Packer game.

This morning I bid our travelers an early adieu.

Good thing I put the door back on the oven before bedtime as the temp was still north of 400f (called a dying oven) and I had a couple of 375g sourdough balls from yesterday.

So I baked bread.

Cheesy boules topped with tarragon plucked from the garden.

 

The Next Morning

Sometimes you have to toss a pie in the Forno at the end of the day.

Thursday evening I fed my sourdough starters and figured I'd use some of the discard to make pizza dough for the holiday weekend.

Last night I made a couple of pizzas.  CSMOs to be exact. For the uninitiated that acronym stands for: cheese, sausage, mushroom and onion.  In the pizza world that is commonly known as The Milwaukee Special.  We ate one and par-baked the second - freezing it for a quick meal down the road.

Pro Tip - Not wanting to waste any BTUs, upon rising this morning the oven had cooled to 375F.  So I baked Door County cherry scones.  

Of course, you can bake bread, cinnamon rolls or cookies too.  Forno be like a big ole battery retaining heat for hours.....

Recipe Of The Day

One of the things about sourdough baking is that maintaining your starter is akin to having another dependent.  Only you don't have to change its diaper and send it to college.  Nevertheless, once a week you have to feed it - a process of discarding half and replenishing it with equal amounts of high-protein flour and water.  Back in the fridge it goes.

On Saturday morning I divided and fed my starter.  

I reserved the half I would have discarded or redirected to baking bread and used it to ferment and overnight sponge for pancakes on Sunday morning.

It is an easy recipe resulting a very good pancake.  

If you follow the recipe below cut everything in half which is plenty for a hearty breakfast for two adults.  I used-up the last of some blueberries and buttermilk we had and served it up with Irish butter and local maple syrup.

If I was making this for guests I'd make a full recipe, amp-up the blueberries and fry-up some breakfast sausages from the local butcher.

This Lactobacillus fermentation is working rather well.  

Recipe here.

Raising a toast to Mad Scientist cooking....

Gentlemen: Start Your Starter

Friday is generally Feed The Sourdough Starter Day. 

This is maintenance so that there is leavening agent in the garage fridge. 

For each jar: 

120g water in a bowl

100g old starter

  10g Bob’s Old Mill Rye flour

 90g King Arthur high protein bread flour

Whisk and return to clean jar with airlock lid. 

First picture was noonish. Second just now- 7 hours later. 

 

Discard starter makes the best buttermilk sourdough pancakes on the planet. Great bread and pizza dough too. 

The jar on the right is three year old San Francisco starter from Amazon. 

The jar on the left is from a friend in Algoma, via a sister in Michigan, who got it from a New York City 3 Star Michelin Chef, who brought it from France 42 years ago. 

Raising a toast to Lactobacillus fermentation…

Pro Tips - you can go away for 2-3 weeks and your starter will respond well to a feeding.   I keep a batch of each in the freezer as backup. Just in case.

Use bottled water if you are on treated city water.

Breakfast

When you feed your sourdough starter the opportunity presents itself to utilize what would ordinarily be discarded.  Rather than throw it down the hole make buttermilk sourdough pancakes.

Bonus is a package of homegrown frozen mulberries!

Homemade sourdough pancakes are the best griddle cakes on the planet.

No more Betty Crocker Bisquick for this camper.

Fresh-Baked Breakfast Treat

Made these today for a cold, snowy morning breakfast treat.

 

Sourdough Breakfast Rolls

 

Starting the day with these sourdough breakfast rolls is a real treat. No kneading required. Just mix the dough before you go to bed, and you will have freshly baked bread for breakfast in 45minutes the next morning.

 

Prep Time 10 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Servings 8 rolls

 

Ingredients

● 420 g high protein unbleached bread flour

● 6 g yeast

● 250 g water

● 50 g milk

● 80 g sourdough starter

● 9 g salt

 

Before you go to bed

1. Mix all ingredients before you go to bed. You don't have to overdo it, just make sure that all flour is hydrated. Cover the dough with cling film and let it ferment overnight at room temperature.

 

Next morning

1. The first thing to do the next morning is to preheat the oven to 480ºF / 250ºC.

2. Pour out the dough on a floured working surface and fold and stretch it into an elongated package. Let the dough rise for 30-45 minutes. Divide the dough into 6-8 pieces and put them on parchment paper on a pizza stone or cookie sheet.

3. Bake them for 15 to 20 minutes. They should have a nice golden brown color. Let them cool on a wire rack or eat them immediately.

 

Pro Tip

These would make for a hearty hoagie roll for lunch sandwiches. Cutting and baking these in smaller rolls would yield an awesome dinner roll.

 

VERY easy recipe that yields big dividends from your domestic tranquility account....