Wow, what fun..I am going to get to bake in Bob's Weber pizza oven 6/23/2012

Wow, Steve’s friend Bob is going to let me bake in his pizza Weber on Sunday! Bob and Steve are the two friends that are building the mobile Airstream with the WFO. Bob also had his own WFO that he built on a trailer. This is Weber Bob built awhile ago. I can hardly wait to test out Bob’s Weber pizza oven. It sure will be fun for me.


Thanks Bob! :)

Norma

 

New Sign for outside Area #4 at Root's Market-Norma's Pizza 6/22/2012

Dave the one maintenance man at market made a really neat sign to tell of the food vendors in Area # 4. Our end of the building is one of the slowest for customers in the whole market. I know because I was in Area #2 for a long while. I talked to the manager at market many times and asked him how we can get more customer traffic back in our area. I do hang a banner across the back of my van on market day that says fresh hot pizza and made-up signs for the 9 bulletin boards around market, but customers usually go on their normal routes and don’t vary a lot from them. The manager at Root’s Market did ask Dave to make the sign. Our parking lot behind my pizza stand does hold many cars and vehicles, but there are also a lot of other parking lots at market. It also doesn’t help customer traffic that the man beside my stand doesn’t want anyone coming in the door beside my stand. He puts up a no exit, not enter sign. There have been some disagreements between me and the man beside me about not letting customers come in that door. I pay for half the space at that door and he pays for the other half space. There are no other access doors at market that are blocked, expect for ones that go directly into vendors stands.


Thanks Dave for the great signs!! I sure appreciated the sign! :)  Dave showed me the sign today and they will be there Tuesday.

Norma

50% soaker made with GM Full Strength Flour NY style pizza 6/12/2012

The pizza with the GM Full Strength soaker at 50% turned out well. I don’t use a lot of bench flour when trying to open any pizza dough and didn’t use much with when opening this dough ball. The dough ball was tacky, but was really easy to open. This pizza didn’t get a lot of oven spring, but the crumb was moist and tender. The bottom crust browns so evenly using the soaker method. I sure don’t know why that is. There is a very nice crispness to the bottom crust, but not too much. The slice had a nice taste in the crust and the slice was so easy to eat, being the crumb was so tender. Steve also liked this pizza very much. I didn’t give any of these slices to my taste testers because I was running out of dough balls, but I did save myself a slice to do a reheat later today. Steve and I didn’t reheat any slices at market either, because we were too busy. The extra slices were put into the heated case and my customers purchased them.


Norma

Peter’s (Pete-zza) idea to try the “entire enchilada” NY style soaker pizza 6/19/2012

Peter’s idea to try the “entire enchilada” method with the Kyrol flour worked out well, with one minor hitch. As I posted in my last post, I never try to use much bench flour in opening any dough balls and this one was not an exception, even if the dough ball is tacky or sticky. The dough ball opened up like a breeze, just like the other dough balls on this thread. Whenever I am trying an experimental pie, or a dough that is higher in hydration, I always make sure to do the shake, shake, thingy on the peel before the pizza goes into the oven, to make sure the skin isn’t sticking anywhere. I asked Steve if the skin was sticking anywhere because he applied the cheese and was going to slide the pizza into the oven. Steve said we will see right when he went to slide the pizza in. Well, it was sticking a little in one place so the pie didn’t get round. The final pizza did get a little more oven spring than the one using the 50% soaker and GM Full Strength flour. The bottom crust also browned nicely, but a little bit different than when using the 50% soaker method and using GM Full Strength flour. The crumb was moist and there was a good taste in the crust. The bottom crust was about the same in crispness though. I also didn’t give any of these slices to any of my taste testers, because we didn’t have time and I also needed a few more slices to sell. I did save a slice for a reheat today though. Steve said he liked the taste of the crust better using the “entire enchilada” method, but I am not sure about that. I really didn’t have enough time to think about it because I had to eat my slice quicker than I had wanted to. Using both of these methods seems to produce a pizza that might have tasted like a real NY style pizza made many years ago, but I can’t be sure of that because I never tasted a NY style pizza made many years ago.


Dropping the water temperature some on both of these experiments didn’t seem to change the results in the final pizza. I used regular warm well water right from my kitchen faucet for both of these doughs. My well water is very hard.

Thanks goodness I am not at market when the temperatures are supposed to be in the high 90’s. It was hot enough at market Tuesday being in front of that oven.

Norma

 

"Dutch Apple Pie Pizza" made with sweet snitz apples 6/19/2012

I made a “Dutch Apple Pie Pizza” with this attempt with November’s dough formulation that I upped the hydration and also used MBF shortening. This attempt was better than my last attempt, in oven spring and also taste in the crust.


I used sweet snitz apples and prepared them Monday evening by boiling them with water, added a little bit of cinnamon and a little bit of sugar. When the apple mixture had cooled I added a couple of squeezes of lemon juice to give a little tarter taste. I also prepared the streusel Monday evening by combining 1 cup Ultragrain flour, 1 cup light brown sugar and ½ cup of butter. That was also refrigerated until Tuesday. The icing was prepared using Peter’s directions of using 1 cup powdered sugar, 3 ¾ teaspoons warm water, 1 teaspoon of Karo syrup, 3/8 teaspoons of real vanilla and a dash of salt and refrigerated.

This dough ball opened easily and didn‘t feel dry. The apple snitz mixture was applied on the skin, then the streusel. The pizza was then baked, cooled, then the icing was applied with my one squeeze bottle with a tip. The resulting taste of the “Dutch Apple Pie Pizza” was really good. My taste testers had a few slices and really enjoyed it. Steve also took home a slice for his wife and she really liked it too. I saved two slices for today. One is for my mom and one is for me. I really like dessert pizzas.

Norma