Dessert Fruit Pizza (with regular dessert dough) toppings cheesecake, fresh fruit and more 6/28/2012

I didn’t have time to use the next iteration of November’s dessert dough at market on Tuesday, so I just brought the dough ball home and placed it in the fridge until last evening. It is hot in our area and I really didn’t want to turn on the oven, but decided since it was a little cooler last evening to try the bake. I didn’t want to attempt this pie today because it is supposed to get to around 96 degrees F today.


I had used Carnation 2% evaporated milk in this next attempt and also had used more water in the formulation than my last attempt. The dough ball smelled good and had bottom fermentation since Tuesday, but didn’t bubble at all on the rough top of the dough ball. I even placed the dough ball outside for 2 hrs. (in the heat) to see what would happen, but it still didn’t bubble at all on the top of the dough ball.

I decided to try different toppings for this pizza and sure didn’t know how they would work out. I have a recipe for cheesecake cupcakes and just made part of the recipe. I thought cheesecake and fresh fruit might go together okay and maybe since the cheesecake batter was going to be spread thin it might bake in a short while at higher temperatures.

I usually try to have a lot of fresh fruit at home to eat this time of year, so I used part of all the fresh fruit I had at home. I used fresh picked raspberries, fresh bing cherries, peaches, apricots, kiwi fruit, and fresh blueberries as part of the toppings. I also thought they are going to give off a lot of juice when baking, so squeezed lemon juice was used on each fruit (some to keep the peaches from browning) and then added some cornstarch to each fruit to see if that would help keep the juices down, or make the juices a little thicker.

The dough was very easy to open, and then orange marmalade was applied thinly, then the cheesecake batter. The dough and dressings were then baked. The cheesecake batter did bake enough in the short while Then the fruits were applied with some added lemon zests. The pie was put back into the oven to get the fruits finished right on the screen. After the pie was taken out of the oven fresh spearmint tea leaves were applied to the top of the pie.

I thought the finished pie turned out well, in that the juices of the fruit didn’t migrate into the crust. The taste of the dessert pizza was very good with the fresh fruits, cheesecake, lemon zest, mint and orange marmalade. It was like a flavor explosion in my mouth. I don’t know why the crust turned out a little bit denser though, but guess it was a good thing it did to hold up all those toppings. I am going to give my mom a few slices today because she loves dessert pizzas. All in all, this dessert pizza turned out better than I thought it would. The bottom crust also browned evenly.

Last picture is of the spearmint tea in my garden. I also really like fresh spearmint tea.

Norma

Outside gardening with tomatoes, veggies and flowers 6/28/2012

I was outside working for awhile yesterday and was weeding and taking care of my flowers. The cayenne pepper seems to be still working to keep the groundhogs away from my tomatoes and veggies. I also sprinkled some cayenne pepper on my basil plants because Japanese beetles were eating at the bail leaves. So far, the cayenne pepper seems to work for the basil plants too.


These are some pictures of my small gardens and flowers. Some of my tomatoes are starting to ripen.

Norma

Another Sicilian pizza with better bottom crust browning 6/26/2012

This was just another Sicilian pie made Tuesday. I like the bottom crust browning better. It is hared to know exactly when to pull these pies out of the oven, and can’t really time the bakes in accuracy because my deck oven temperatures fluctuate because the doors are opened and closed many times. I don’t know how I did it on this pie, but the bottom crust was evenly browned. I also added the blend of grated Parmigiano Reggiano and Romao that I had purchase at Bova under the sauce. I liked the addition of the grated Parmigiano Reggiano and Romao cheese.


I think I have found the best methods for me to get a nice moist crumb and a decent crunch to the bottom of the crust in a steel pan.

The one close-up shot I tried to edit, in real life looked to me to be something like a bubble man trying to eat the pizza..lol!

Norma

Soaker dough with no salt in soaker pizza 6/26/2012

The no salt soaker made with a higher water temperature also worked out okay. I think the no salt soaker method was better than the salt brine soaker, made with the same water temperature. I reason I think that, is that the crumb was moister, the oven spring was a little better and somehow the taste of the crust was also a little better. The bottom crust did brown a little differently, but that could have been how much my oven doors were opened and closed. The no salt soaker dough ball also felt a little higher in hydration than it was, it also opened very easily. As far as I can tell from my experiments, the higher temperature used for both soakers worked well.


Last picture is the two slices for reheats later today.

Norma