Waffle Iron Dessert Pizza 8/18/2010

After thinking about the waffle iron pizza and getting even top and bottom heat and also thinking about getting a puffier pizza, I decided to investigate how my waffle iron was put together.  There was a little pin than held the top of the plate to the bottom.  There was no way to get that pin out because it was recessed into the bottom part of the waffle iron.  I then decided to get my trusty little LED magnifier out and see if I could figure out how this waffle iron could be dismantled.  I found I would only need to take the screw off on the bottom of the waffle iron.  Now my waffle iron might be able to produce a puffier pizza.

I did make a waffle iron dessert pizza later that day and posted how a waffle iron made a pizza.
I was trying to see how I could keep both ends of the top plate of the waffle iron up, since it was taken apart.  I found some cannoli rolls in my kitchen drawer and decided to use them at both ends to keep the plates apart.

I used a preferment Lehmann frozen small dough ball for this waffle iron pizza.  I let the dough ball defrost in the refrigerator.  I was also trying to think how I wanted to make this pie a dessert pizza.  I decided since I had some fresh Red Haven peaches and decided to use them in some way.  I used apple wine my cousin have given to me at Christmas and made a slightly thick sauce with apple wine, a little water, sugar, lemon, and corn starch.  I also used my fresh blueberry syrup I had made over the weekend for my crepes.  I drained any juice off that syrup.  When the pie was finished cooking or baking in the waffle iron and the dressing were applied, I did add whipped cream cheese for another topping.  Some of the slices also had confectionary sugar sprinkled on.

The waffle iron did work, again......:) :) :)

Norma

August 2010 Monthly Challenge: Barbecue (BBQ or just Q)

8/08/10
For this month’s challenge I made a BBQ pizza in my Waffle Iron.  Toppings were homemade BBQ sauce, cooked chicken thigh, added to simmering BBQ sauce, fresh peppers from my garden sauteed in olive oil and fresh grape tomatoes from my garden.

I decided to try something unconventional for a pizza  Since I like to experiment in different ways, I decided to try out my waffle iron for a pizza oven.  Since it does heat on the top and bottom evenly, I thought I would give it a go for a pizza oven.  The temperature on the waffle iron can get a over 500 degrees F.

I removed a small dough ball from my freezer and time defrosted the dough ball  in my microwave and then left it on my kitchen table for about 1 hour.  I wasn’t sure how this bake was going to go in the waffle iron and had my reservations about the dough sticking to the waffle iron.  I thought maybe if oiled the plates with olive oil that was good for grilling that might work, to keep the dough from sticking.  I did oil both plates with a pastry brush.  I then let the Waffle Iron get hot. The temperature of my Waffle Iron taken with the IR gun was 520 degrees F. The dough was floured some and then also oiled with olive oil.  When I place the skin in the Waffle Iron it quickly started to rise. After baking for a little while I was wondering if both sides were getting baked evenly.  I checked on the bottom and it seemed to be baking well.  I rotated this pie a few times with two forks and then closed the lid on the Waffle Iron.  After I thought the pie was baked enough, I removed it with forks from the Waffle Iron.  I then placed the pie on a metal peel and dressed the pie.  The pie was dressed with BBQ sauce that was made from corn syrup, molasses,  tomato paste, Colgin liquid smoke, vinegar, mustard seed, salt, pineapple juice, garlic, some chili powder and a little bit of Kitchen Bouquet to give it a browner color. None of these ingredients were weighed out. I just put different ingredients into a pan. Then mozzarella was added with sauteed peppers from my garden and also grape tomatoes from my garden.  The broiler of my oven was then turned on and I finished baking this pie in the broiler so the cheese would melt and also the rim would brown better.

In my opinion this was the most different pie I had tasted to this date.  The crust was moist and the tangy BBQ sauce with chicken combined with the peppers and grape tomatoes were tasty.

After trying out this waffle iron as a pizza oven, I saw how fast this dough could rise with using even top and bottom heat.  The dough really want to puff and rise fast.  I had to close the lid tighter so the side wouldn’t become uneven and also because the middle of this pizza would have also been too thick.  After doing this experiment for a pizza using the Waffle Iron, I then thought about a Panini grill I used to own when I had my funnel cake stand.  That grill had flat plates and a floating head.  I used it to make Mexican quesadillas, fry food, made Mexican pizza with frozen raised tortilla shells and make other food items.  This isn’t the exact Panini grill I owned, but it is something like it.  I wish I still owned that Panini grill to try a pizza out to see who well that would make a crust rise and also evenly bake the pizza....the pizza making adventure will continue later....

Norma

May 2010 Monthly Challenge: Birthday

I haven’t tried to make many deep-dish pizzas, but I really love them.  I decided to make a deep-dish Birthday Cake for this challenge.

I used a yellow cake mix, for the deep-dish pie.  The deep-dish Birthday Cake was dressed with white chocolate shredded, ( to simulate cheese) fruit slices that were rolled with a rolling pin to create green peppers, parsley, pepperoni,  marshmallows rolled and cut with a scissors to simulate mushrooms and red Swedish fish to simulate anchovies.  The icing was just a basic butter cream icing that I added food coloring to simulate the tomato sauce.  I didn’t realize I didn’t have enough red food coloring so my tomato sauce is on the pink side.

The birthday deep-dish pizza I made May 15, 2010 stayed  fine for a few days.  No need to heat it up.  Below is a picture of another slice.

I want to wish everyone that might read this, a  “Happy Birthday”, whenever their birthday is.

Our birthdays are like feathers which sway in the wings of our life time.

Hey everybody, it’s a fine, fine day,
And our celebration is underway,
At our Birthday Pizza Party,
You’re all sweet enough,
So we changed tradition,
And they’ll be no cake,
On this expedition,
We’ll have a Birthday Pizza Party,
Yes, a Birthday Pizza Party,
Forget the candles,
And dishin’ out little pieces,
The main course will be,
Individual pizzas,
At our Birthday Pizza Party,
Our Birthday Pizza Party,
It will be so much fun,
We’ll have a ‘feasta’,
While everyone’s eatin’,
Their birthday pizza,
At our Birthday Pizza Party,
Yes our Birthday Pizza Party,
Everybody sing it now,
“Birthday pizza to all,
On the street and in the mall,
It’s a wonderful party,
Birthday pizza to all”


Happy Birthday by: The Chipmunks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu37ssUVuD4

Norma

Second submission for “Birthday”..A Crazy Pizza May 31, 2010

Since nt other members did a submission for this challenge, I decided to another birthday pizza..  This is not a sweet one, like my last submission.  It is more like the “staff of life”, but a pizza.  This “Birthday Pizza” only has earth colors.

It still wans't too late for someone to get into this challenge, but no other members did.

This sure was a "crazy" pizza..lol

Norma

How to Caluclate Thickness Factor of a Pizza-Tom Lehmann

This article was published on PMQ by Tom Lehmann the dough doctor.

Question:
We're planning to change the size of our large pizza from 16-inches to 18-inches. How much dough should we use for this size?

Answer:
This is a very commonly asked question, which is easily answered through the use of a little basic high school math. The math involved here has to do with finding the surface area of a circle. The formula for this is expressed as p x R2 . I'll bet you remember that from grade school or high school math class.

To refresh your memory, p is 3.14 (rounded off) and R is the radius of a circle (one-half of it's diameter), and to square the radius, you simply multiply it times itself. With that out of the way, let’s see how we can make this work for us.

In a situation where we already have a pizza and we just want to change the size of the pizza, or add another size, this is what we need to do:

Find the surface area of one of our existing pizza sizes (let’s say it's 12 inches in diameter and the scaling weight is 11 ounces)
Multiply 3.14 x 36 = 130 square inches.
Divide the dough scaling weight by the surface area (11 ounces divided by 113 = 0.0973-ounces of dough per square inch of surface area). You will want to use this same dough loading per square inch of surface area for all of your pizzas (of this type) for consistency in baking and appearance.
Find the surface area of the new diameter that you want to make (let’s say it is 81 inches).
Multiply 3.14 X 81 = 254 square inches of surface area.
To find the dough weight needed for this new diameter multiply the dough loading weight (0.0973 ounces) times the new surface area. (0.0973 x 254 = 24.71 (call it 24.75 ounces) of dough will be needed for the new, 16-inch diameter pizza.
Let’s take a look at another situation. In this case, you might be making a new type of pizza and you don't have any idea of what the scaling weight should be.

Begin by experimenting with different dough weights for a single size pizza. Pick any size you want to experiment with. When you find the dough weight that gives you the pizza that YOU want, make a note of the dough weight.
Now, calculate the surface area of the size of experimental pizza.
Divide the weight of dough that worked best for you by the surface area of the pizza. This will give you a dough weight per square inch of pizza surface (AKA dough weight loading).
Find the surface area of the other pizza diameters that you will want to make.
Multiply the surface area of each pizza diameter by the dough weight loading, and you will have the correct dough weight for that size/diameter of pizza.
The advantages to finding your dough weights in this manner are that each size will have a similar appearance (only the diameter will change) and because the thickness of the dough will always be the same it will bake in a similar manner (shorter time, but probably at the same temperature). If you do a lot of this type of thing, now is a good time to cut this out and post it on the wall near your desk.

Tom Lehmann/the dough doctor

http://www.pmq.com/mag/2004november_december/lehmann.php

A big thanks to Tom Lehmann for posting how to calculate Thickness Factors for pizzas. :)

Norma

Pete-zza’s latest numbers on Thickness Factors for different pizzas

These Thickness Factors were posted on pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php by Pete-zza (Peter)

Thin crust (general): 0.10
NY "street" or "slice" style crust: 0.085-0.10 (I personally like 0.10-0.105; some will argue that that is too high for a NY style)
"Elite" NY crust thickness: 0.065-0.085
Medium crust (general): 0.11
Thick crust (general): 0.12-0.13
Neapolitan 1 crust: 0.07-08 (for high-temperature applications)
Neapolitan 2 crust: 0.095-0.11 (for home oven applications, e.g., A16 clones)
Thin "crispy" cracker-type crust: 0.05-0.08
Thin "tender" cracker-type crust: 0.09-0.10
American style: 0.12-0.14
Chicago deep-dish style: 0.11-0.135
Sicilian style: 0.12-0.13 (however, I have seen as high as 0.15)

Norma

Second Submission for the April 2010 Monthly Challenge: Breakfast Pizza 4/11/2010

This was my second submission for the breakfast or brunch pizza. hotsawce gave the idea for this type of cracker-like crust.  Although I did post my results under his thread, since I enjoyed this Bittman’s Matzo Pizza, I decided to also post under the Challenge.

I enjoyed this pizza because of the garlic white sauce, that didn’t taste anything like Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  It just had a wonderful garlic taste and also a cheesy taste from the Parmesan Cheese which was added when making the white garlic sauce.  I also enjoyed the crust of the Bittmans’ Matzo Pizza.  It had a light flaky texture.  It didn’t have the flavor of a cracker. When I bit into the crust it reminded me something like a pie crust that was so flaky. I make different kinds of pie crusts and the one I make has much oil in it and I have to roll it out between two wax papers, because it is so delicate.  It didn’t taste like that pie crust, but was flaky something like the pie crust. I can’t explain how it tasted, but it sure was different.  If I try this kind of pie again, I will make one crust a little thicker to see what the results would be.  This pie had two layers.

Last picture is one I tried to take though a magnifying glass to see how the layers were.  The picture didn't get too good...lol

I think this could be eaten for breakfast or brunch.

Norma