Hi,

I used bread flour. I bought 10 pounds before shutdown. I just cracked open the second bag for this recipe. I might have used it far earlier, but for a while I kept winning bread via Jewel's Monopoly season.

If I did not have bread flour available to me, I would buy gluten to bring up the protein content.

Quite often you have to work with what you have available. I look forward to hearing about your experience.

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:If I did not have bread flour available to me, I would buy gluten to bring up the protein content.

Can you tell me more? What specific product would you buy?

Hi,

I last purchased wheat gluten at Whole Foods. This product is used to make seitan for vegetarians and vegans.

You need to collect information on the percentage of protein you wish to have in your flour. You may want to aim at what King Arthur has in their product.

You need to read the bag of your A-P flour to learn what percent protein is in your flour on hand.

Do the calculations to measure enough gluten to increase the protein content of your A-P flour to bring it up to Bread flour.

I learned about this from a presenter at Culinary Historians who reverse engineered how to make the House of Pancakes German apple pancake. They use a high protein flour unavailable to consumers. To attain the results he wanted, he had to add gluten to the bread flour spelled out in his recipe.

For those who attended, I bought gluten and measured out enough for people to make two German apple pancakes. I guessed people would want to try this at home, but might not want to buy a pound to support their curiosity. For some people, once your curiosity is satisfied, you may never make another. For others, it may convince them to buy for future baking projects.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Cathy2

That's all very helpful. Thanks very much!

Cathy2 wrote:...I learned about this from a presenter at Culinary Historians who reverse engineered how to make the House of Pancakes German apple pancake. They use a high protein flour unavailable to consumers. To attain the results he wanted, he had to add gluten to the bread flour spelled out in his recipe. ...

Cathy, is this recipe available on line some where? I've been trying to figure out the Original Pancake House Apple pancake recipe with out much luck. Most Apple pancake recipes I found, have the apples floating up into the batter. Thanks.

Hi,

Send me your email via PM, I will send it to you.

It is in the Chicago Tribune archive, but they changed two ingredients. It is over that this person flew in from Washington, D.C. to set the record straight with us.

I have the unadulterated recipe.

Regards,
Cathy2

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

Send me your email via PM, I will send it to you.

It is in the Chicago Tribune archive, but they changed two ingredients. It is over that this person flew in from Washington, D.C. to set the record straight with us.

I have the unadulterated recipe.

Regards,
Cathy2

You are most kind, PM on the way.

Like many LTHers, we've been doing a lot of cooking at home this year, including lots of pizza. I've been remiss about posting some of our 'greatest hits' from the summer/fall.

For 4th of July, we got a 'grill kit' from Publican Quality Meatmarket and used the leftovers for a pizza with Beer brats, American cheese, beer braised onions and pulled pork. It was...interesting..I think I prefer brats and pulled pork on a bun.





We also did a pulled pork, gochuchang spiked tomato sauce, scallion, shitake pizza and drizzled miso queso sauce (from the Emily pizza cookbook). Seems like an unlikely combination but I liked this one quite a lot.








We do lots of different pizzas with corn during the season. Here's a whipped cream, corn, basil, Spanish chorizo.



We've been making lots of half-and-half pizzas to please everyone in the house. This one was half prosciutto, marinara, fontina, mozz and half buffalo chicken with pickled jalapenos, chicken cutlets tossed in butter and Frank's hot sauce, blue cheese. I know it's more traditional to add prosciutto after the pizza is cooked but there is something to be said for crispy, porky bits from cooking the prosciutto on the pizza

.

My dough is a 1/3 KA White Whole Wheat and 2/3 KA AP.
I add olive oil to the dough and I liberally coat a very shallow baking pan with olive oil so the crust actually fries on the bottom.
Crust is rolled thin.
A simple sauce with oregano, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, onions and a few anchovies for good measure.
If we have fresh basil, it is under the cheese.
450 oven with convection and a little top broiler to get a little char on the top.
-Richard

Tava has been one of our 3 favorite places during the pandemic. The food is delicious, it travels/reheats great, the folks there seem to very careful about COVID precautions, and as an added bonus, the curry sauces are great on pizza. Our favorite leftovers on pizza are the paneer makhani and the chicken lababdar.

Paneer makhani pizza


We also make our own version of butter chicken, which is great on pizza with jalapeños and/or roasted red peppers.

Homemade butter chicken pizzas

Here's what happens when you let a 6 y/o choose the pizza toppings

Half hot-dog, half margherita (topped with ketchup later )


Half macaroni and cheese, half asparagus/sausage white pie (I think)


Half cheesy broccoli, half pesto topped with scallops after cooking (the adults chose half)

thaiobsessed wrote:Here's what happens when you let a 6 y/o choose the pizza toppings . . .

LOL - classic! I'm sure they were still great (well, maybe not the one with ketchup).

=R=

thaiobsessed wrote: (topped with ketchup later )

Hopefully, you had some proper Polish pizza ketchup for that:

Binko wrote:

thaiobsessed wrote: (topped with ketchup later )

Hopefully, you had some proper Polish pizza ketchup for that:

Will have to find this to use a base for the next hot dog pizza!

Neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night....

Made a few pizzas this weekend in the early part of the snow storm

Vermont smoke and cure pepperoni, red sauce, goat cheese, pickled jalapeños


Pistachio, whipped cream, sausage, Thai basil (no Italian basil in the house, but...it worked)


p.s. thanks to RonnieS and nxtasy for tips on photos on Imgur--your tips + using the autoresize function on Imgur really helped.

Nice. Where do you get your pepperoni ?

thaiobsessed wrote:Neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night....

Outstanding! The pizzas look great and your dedication is beyond words!

=R=

lougord99 wrote:Nice. Where do you get your pepperoni ?

So, several years ago, I found Vermont smoke and cure pepperoni in a store but waited a while to try it. We loved it. It's got great flavor and cups beautifully, However, I could not remember where I bought it (Harvestime? Standard Market? Gene's?). According the their website, they sell it at Target but I've never been able to find it there (though I've seen their beef sticks there). So I've been ordering it from Amazon. But if anyone sees it locally, please post!

ronnie_suburban wrote:Outstanding! The pizzas look great and your dedication is beyond words!

Thanks Ronnie! I will admit, we finished before the worst of the storm...

:: perk :: Vermont smoke and cure pepperoni ::

This sounds like something I should look out for on my next (sigh... post-pandemic; who knows when) trip to Vermont to visit family. One of the several reasons I prefer road trips to plane trips is the prospect of coming home with the back of the CR-V stocked with boxes and coolers of foodstuffs we can't find here in Chicagoland.

In the meantime, I searched on the company's website for "where to buy" locations within 40 miles of Mundelein. Vermont Smoke & Cure products are shown as being sold at numerous Target stores in the area, as well as multiple locations of Heinens, Fresh Market, and Fresh Thyme. Hope this is helpful.

The Glenview Target has VS&C turkey pepperoni sticks available. So do several more urban locations.

The brand may become more readily available, especially in the midwest, now that it's been acquired by Johnsonville: https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/16880-johnsonville-acquires-vermont-smoke-cure

Thaiobsessed, enjoyed following your greatest hits pizza project. I don't know which would be my favorite. It was fun to see the kid-pick creations, but this photo really made me smile.

The snow doesn't faze you, nor the LTH followers who focus on the meat and other toppings.

No one bats an eye at the elements. Nice work.

janeyb wrote:Thaiobsessed, enjoyed following your greatest hits pizza project. I don't know which would be my favorite. It was fun to see the kid-pick creations, but this photo really made me smile.

The snow doesn't faze you, nor the LTH followers who focus on the meat and other toppings.

No one bats an eye at the elements. Nice work.

Thanks janeyb-the show must go on! We're trying to make lemonade out of this lemon of a winter...
We had another go this weekend--I attempted heart shaped pepperoni but I buried it under too much cheese.

Also, thanks to the folks with VS&C pepperoni sightings. I'm holding out for the big sticks of pork pepperoni--if anyone sees those, let me know (haven't been able to find them at any nearby Target locations)




This picture was taken before this week's big snow--the picture from the next pizza will look like I'm carrying towards a ski slope.

thaiobsessed wrote:Vermont smoke and cure pepperoni, red sauce, goat cheese, pickled jalapeños

Thank you. I simply copied your idea straight up. I got the pepperoni on Amazon as you suggested.
This is one of the things I love about LTH - the sharing of ideas.

lougord99 wrote:This is one of the things I love about LTH - the sharing of ideas.

I'm with you--I've a learned a LOT from the folks on this site.
Your pizza looks great--nice cupping on the pepperoni. I love that combo (and we often add a little drizzle of honey after cooking)!

I wasn't planning on posting about this, so I only have two pics, but I'm getting pretty happy with my pizza technique using unglazed quarry tiles on the grill:




Nice open holes in the crust; good leoparding. I'm pretty happy with this for not having a true pizza oven setup. I finally figured out my technique. (I may have mentioned some of this earlier in the thread, but a recap). The quarry tile gets real hot in my Charbroil "Commercial" series grill (don't be fooled -- it's a pretty inexpensive grill, like $500, I got at Lowe's) The thing gets darned hot, though. That leoparding is from about two to two and a half minutes on the tile (which I preheat for about 30 minutes.) This also means I get nice oven spring.

The problem is the top is nowhere near done by the time the bottom is done. I used to finish the pizza under the broiler, but a few weeks ago, I finally had a better -- and obvious -- idea. Keep it in the grill, but get it off the stone with a wire rack. That did the trick. Another five minutes or so and the top was cooked and nicely browned, without the bottom of the crust turning into a sheet of charcoal. It is a little bit crispier than a regular NY or Neapolitan style because it does stay in the heat for a total of 7-8 minutes, so that may be a plus or minus, depending on your pizza philosophy.

Best was my younger daughter (5) digging into the pizza and saying, unprompted, "Daddy, I love the dough! The dough is so good!" And, literally, she only ate the crust.

The dough itself was simple, as always. Pretty much no knead. 75% hydration. Some diastatic malt powder. Mixed together, left on counter overnight for about 16 hours. Punched down and kneaded for like 15-30 seconds. Thrown in a container and put in the back of the fridge for three days before using. Couldn't be simpler.

Binko wrote:I wasn't planning on posting about this, so I only have two pics, but I'm getting pretty happy with my pizza technique using unglazed quarry tiles on the grill:

...
The problem is the top is nowhere near done by the time the bottom is done. I used to finish the pizza under the broiler, but a few weeks ago, I finally had a better -- and obvious -- idea. Keep it in the grill, but get it off the stone with a wire rack. That did the trick. Another five minutes or so and the top was cooked and nicely browned, without the bottom of the crust turning into a sheet of charcoal. It is a little bit crispier than a regular NY or Neapolitan style because it does stay in the heat for a total of 7-8 minutes, so that may be a plus or minus, depending on your pizza philosophy.
...

Nice. I have been using quarry tiles in the oven and/or grill for years now. So much cheaper and easier than pizza stones. I never thought of your "obvious" solution to the crust being done before the toppings, but I will surely try it now. For me, I would crank the oven or grill to pre-heat the stones and then dial it back a bit to 550° or so, and try and find that balance between crust and toppings being done at about the same time. In the oven I also place the racks closer together with a layer of quarry tiles on each rack. The pizza in between seems to work better at finishing the toppings than without them.

You have an oven that goes above 550 ??? What brand ?

lougord99 wrote:You have an oven that goes above 550 ??? What brand ?

The dial it back was in regards to the grill. I have a GE Gallery oven that is 30 years old. It will get to around 550.

A couple weeks ago, the Shop & Save at Archer and Central had some flour in their clearance bin. It was "Selzione Casillo Farina di Grano Tenero Tipo 00" for a buck twenty-nine a kilo. Seemed like a good deal for 00 flour, so I bought two.

I had never made my doughs with 00 flour yet, being quite comfortable with the results of my beloved Ceresota AP flour. This week, I stepped outside my comfort zone and I cooked out on the grill twice with the 00 flour, and the results were fantastic. I didn't take many pictures, but here's a couple from yesterday and last week:


(Yesterday's pizza: mushroom with thyme, Cento crushed red tomatoes, mix of cheeses [mozzarella, parmagianno-regianno, and some aged pepper-rinded cheese I forgot about in the fridge--I wish I knew what this was, because it went great], white pizza [sour cream, garlic] with walnuts, rosemary, bacon, black pepper, the above mix of cheeses, finished with fresh scallions])


(Same as the above walnut pizza, except with red sauce.)

The difference in result between the 00 flour and Ceresota is quite pronounced to me. I followed the same dough recipe with 75% hydration, almost no-knead, 12-16 hours room temp rise, three-ish days in the fridge. The Selzione Casillo flour on both occasions turned out a much softer crust -- still had crisp to it, but it was a light, delicate one. A more easily foldable pizza using my set-up than with the Ceresota.

The Ceresota flour was crispier -- not cracker-like, but just at the point where it's just barely foldable. It's still very good -- just a bit of a different texture, and it depends on what result you prefer or are in the mood for. Flavor was great in both, but that was due to wonderful charring and a long, slow cold rise/ferment in the fridge over several days.

Next experiment will be to combine the two, though I'm not sure I need an intermediary result. I liked both results. To be honest, I still haven't tried bread flour yet, though I hear that's better for lower hydration doughs? Perhaps someone can speak on this. I'm not sure I'd want my pizza harder than the Ceresota AP flour texture. I'd imagine I'd have to change the hydration somewhat, but I'm very happy with both these results.

Other notes: man, my quarry tile got HOT. The first pizza I made I had it on the tiles for two minutes and that was too much. I gave them a bit more time to heat up than usual (went the full 30 minutes this time.) Almost solid black on the bottom, but, fortunately, somehow not burnt tasting, just pleasant char flavor. One and a half minutes. (Then moved to a wire rack to finish cooking above the stones -- that part was another five minutes maybe? I just go by how it looks at that point. The time on the tile I time.)

All in all, these pizzas are well beyond what I thought was possible using something other than a proper pizza oven. That walnut pizza, especially, I loved. It was inspired both by the Pizza Rosa from Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix, and the Alsatian tarte flambee.)

dang