Mack's attempt with MBF shortening 6/19/2012

Steve and I made the Mack’s attempt at the very end of the day, because we were busy the rest of the day and also were trying to fit in other experiments. We were out of regular dough balls and Steve had mixed the Gangi sauce and shredded the Great Lakes white cheddar. The Mack’s clone dough ball was left out to ferment longer than I wanted and it was warm at market. The dough ball did open up very easily. Being tried, I forgot to press on the dough ball at all. I just opened the dough ball normally. After the pizza was dressed and in the oven, I remembered when I first looked in the oven and saw the rim rising, that I had forgot to press on the dough ball before I opened it.
The Mack’s attempt did give me some surprises though, one in that there was good oven spring, the taste of the crust was better than usual, the crumb had a much different texture, and the bottom crust wasn’t as crispy as normal. Steve and I really liked this Mack’s attempt even though the crust wasn’t right. We both thought the crust was really different.

The Gangi sauce and the Great Lakes white cheddar really went together well too. The cheese wasn’t as greasy like a Mack’s pizza is and the tang wasn’t enough, but Steve and I both thought it tasted as good, or better than a Mack’s pizza. The pizza did taste something like a Mack’s pizza.

I don’t know if the MBF made that much of a difference in the crust, but this pizza in texture and taste weren’t anything like my attempts with the same formulation.

Norma

Soaker Dough Pizza made with Bova 00 flour and Ischia starter, had so many problems..lol..modified BBQ grill and also modified pizza peel 6/17/2012

What an adventure in trying to make the soaker dough pizza with the Bova 00 flour and leavened with the Ischia starter. There were a lot of problems. First I forgot to bring my IR thermometer home from market. I then couldn’t get the firebricks placed in the top of the pan the same way I did before, so I just slanted some at the back top in the metal pan. I didn’t have my top metal plate either. The BBQ grill was heated up for an hour. I had started getting equipment together and somehow hit my small wooden peel on a post going outside. Well, that darn thing spit in two, and my other two wooden peels at home are too big to go into the small opening on my BBQ grill set-up. I then scouted around in my two sheds and did have thin pieces of wood that I could have cut into a peel, but I sure didn’t want to get saws and other stuff out to do that. I couldn’t find any pieces of wood that might have fit into the small opening. I found a shipping box in my one shed and decided to use that for the peel. I got a straight piece of wood and placed duct tape around the wood and part of the shipping box I cut out. What a heck of a looking peel. I did do a few practice shots into the BBQ grill without the pizza and thought maybe this will work, as long as I didn’t hit the underneath piece of wood that was sticking out on the firebricks. Then for some reason the dough wanted to be too sticky when coming out of the plastic container so the pie wasn’t exactly round and wanted to stick to the surface of my bigger wooden peel I was opening it on. Finally I got that straightened out. I had put some apple chips on the back of the firebricks to simulate a real WFO. I had left a little space between the firebricks and the back firebrick so the chips would ignite. The pizza did launch off of the makeshift peel okay. The bottom started to want to get too brown a little before the pizza was finished and I just put the pizza on a cake pan and finished baking. I turned the pizza with a BBQ metal spatula. It can be seen in the first picture how big the other smallest peel I had at home was. At least the final pizza did taste very good in the crust and had oven spring. What a way to make pizza. Now time for a glass of wine...lol!


Norma

Gardening, Garage Sales, Sunrise and Working Outside 6/16/2012

I was working outside the last few days as much as I could. I was taking care of my garden and flowers. I got to go to garage sales this morning near where I live. I found a really neat old rain barrel, a wicker seat, old doilies, a bunch of old kitchen utensils and a few other things and only spent 15.00 for everything. I purchased a bale of straw from a farmer near me so I can put that down for bedding in my garden and where other tomatoes, herbs and veggies are. I did hoe, but only got some of the straw bedding down today. Tomorrow is another day and will get more work done outside. I really love outside flowers and trying to garden.



Where some of my tomato plants and some other veggies are there is a darn groundhog that was trying to eat or mow down my plants. I put some cayenne pepper on the leaves and so far in the last week the groundhog hasn’t eaten any more plants. The one groundhog hole can be seen right near one part of my garden. Hopefully he won’t want to eat anymore of my stuff.

Norma