Posted by Bill_SFNM, January 27th, 2012  glazed doughnuts made with leftover pizza dough I always make extra dough balls when making pizza. With a dough hydration level in excess of 70% and the goal to use as little bench flour as possible, sticking accidents occasionally happen and it is good to have backup dough so nobody goes hungry.
Throwing leftover balls out after taking such care to develop the flavor and texture over the 48 hour fermentation and proof is out of the question. So over the years I have been on a quest to find ways to use them in creative and worthy ways.
Frying dough is nothing new — stuffed or unstuffed, sweet or savory. Early on I tried forming doughnuts directly out of my pizza dough. The flavor was great, but the texture was too chewy. And there was just too little structure in the wet dough to properly roll out and cut them into rings.
The following method produces soft, billowy, raised doughnuts:
- Dump 2 dough balls (260g each) into food processor
- Add about 1/2 cup of flour — maybe more depending on stickiness of the dough
- Add 1/4 cup sugar
- Add 1/4 cup shortening
- Add 1/4 teaspoon mace
- Run the food processor until mixed to the desired texture, adding more flour as needed
- Roll out and cut
- Allow to proof for several hours until doubled
- Fry @ 365°F (enough oil for the doughnuts to float without touching the bottom)
- Glaze while hot
Waste not, eat well!
*editors note: Bill mentions that he prefers canola oil for frying sweets.
Posted by TXCraig, January 26th, 2012 The second-tier 1997 Napa Cabernet Sauvignons, in most cases, have probably reached or are past their peak. Take the Anderson’s Conn Valley Vineyard 1997 Eloge for example. In the glass, the nose still makes me think of a right bank Bordeaux. The wine’s once firm tannins have softened nicely during its years in the bottle and it has developed a beautiful mahogany color around the rim, but it’s losing some of its fruit. It’s still slightly sweet with some vanilla and oak, but the leather, tobacco and coffee notes are coming through much stronger now. This is not unusual among the other 97’s I’ve tasted recently. For me, this represents a great opportunity for new parings with pizza.
Three Onion Pie
I love red wine with onions. It’s a classic combination that perhaps started with Coq au Vin (which legend has it dates back to Julius Caesar). Supposedly, the combination is good for your heart too. Bonus!
For this pie, yellow and red onions were sprinkled with EVOO and pecan smoked kosher salt. After roasting in the oven, they were gently tossed with a little Texas Olive Ranch mesquite smoked olive oil. The sourdough pie was topped lightly with dry whole milk mozzarella, the roasted onions, dry thyme, and fresh ground black pepper. After a 60 second bake at 900°F, thinly sliced green onions were added post-bake.
The pie balanced perfectly with the ’97 Eloge. Somewhere between a Tignanello and pizza and a St. Émilion and onion tart, the sweetness of the onions filled in perfectly where the wine’s fruit had diminished and the smoky richness of the caramelized onion and charred tips complemented perfectly the subtle oak. All the while, the now showcased darker, earthy flavors of the wine paired with the crust, cheese, and multi-layered savory onion flavors.
Posted by Pizzablogger, January 25th, 2012 I’m proud to introduce Craig Lindberg, a.k.a. TXCraig, as a contributor to this website. The Houston, Texas resident has an Italian wood-burning pizza oven in his garage and the pizzamaking chops to make what are some of the best looking pizzas this pie-lovin’ fool has seen–anywhere.
 - Margherita with sausage & Clam pizzas
Craig has a passion for pizza, cooking, fishing, wine and hunting, so there may be any number of topics he may bring up here….like Bill_SFNM, Craig has an open forum here. If you want to learn more about TXCraig, definitely check out his Home Pizza Heroes interview for in-depth details on his awesome home made pizzas. Welcome aboard Craig!
Posted by Pizzablogger, January 25th, 2012 Note: This interview session I did with Craig first appeared on the Slice, the nation’s leading pizza website. Craig is a contributor to pizzablogger.org
 You'd be happy too having one of these in your garage! (Photographs: Craig Lindberg) The sound and vibration through the seat feels good—you’ve just had some aftermarket parts for your sports car installed, dialed everything in and buffed the car to a high shine. The car breathes with new-found muscle as you point it towards the road and head over to your friend’s house. Upon arriving you give a beep, gun the gas for a second, and yell for your buddy to come outside.
Suddenly you hear the creak and scrape of your friend’s garage door as it separates from the concrete floor. As the garage door opens, the elegant lines and beauty of a Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano is revealed sitting inside of the garage. You know your girl is a beauty in her own right, but you can only look into the garage, stunned. Holy. Shit.
Continue reading Home Pizza Heroes: Craig Lindberg & His Neapolitan Garage (Extended) »
Posted by Pizzablogger, January 23rd, 2012 Note: This interview session I did with Chau first appeared on the Slice, the nation’s leading pizza website.
 On guard, do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me? (Photographs: Chau Tran) “Bringing kung foolery to pizza making” is one of his sayings, but make no joke about it, Chau “Jackie” Tran is dead serious when it comes to homemade pies. Within a relatively short period of time, Tran has honed his skills, deepened his knowledge of the pizza work-flow, has become a core member of the pizzamaking.com forums, and is now an all-around pizza-making monster. The Albuquerque, New Mexico, resident is proof positive that lots of research and time spent with hands gooped up from dough adds up to some pretty kick-ass-looking and, I bet, -tasting, pizzas.
It’s one thing to scour a variety of pizza recipes from books and the web to discover the one which best mimics the vision of an ideal pizza. It’s quite another to learn about and constantly experiment with the different variables involved in the baking process so that you can better understand how to formulate your own work-flow and end up with a pizza that closely resembles the pies that haunt you late at night, when the pizza demons are on the prowl. With Chau’s pizzas looking this good now, I can only imagine where they will be as time progresses.
 NY-Neapolitan style pizza influenced by Totonno's Coney Island You’ve been making pizza at home for a relatively short period of time, right? How long?
I recall making crappy pizza as a kid here and there. I also made a lot of French bread pizza in college to get by, LOL. I’ve been seriously making pizza at home for about a year and a half.
Continue reading Home Pizza Heroes: Chau Tran, The Balanced Approach to Pizzamaking »
Posted by Pizzablogger, January 20th, 2012 While eating pizza out of town at yet another place billing itself as a “gourmet” pizzeria and yet again being disappointed, I’ve come to the conclusion that a pizzeria self-promoting such a thing is bullocks, or at least close to it.
The facts still remain:
1. Not a single one of the great pizzas I have eaten came from a place which advertised themselves as “gourmet”.
2. I have never been served a memorable pizza at a joint billing themselves as serving ”gourmet” pizza or as being a “gourmet pizzeria”.
 typical look of many "gourmet" pizzas Many people have posited to me that I am a fan of gourmet pizzas because of the seemingly upscale or strange topping combinations I may order in pizzerias I like. It’s all really a matter of your pizza perspective, but this is not the case. In fact, many of the newer pizzerias with wood-fired, coal-fired or other high heat ovens are not “gourmet” or “upscale” at all. If anything, they are decidedly throwback, more old-school pizzerias that realize respect and attention must first be given to the dough or you don’t have a good pizza–at all. Their use of higher quality toppings merely represents their respect for ingredients and a desire to compliment the crust underneath just like old-school pizzerias have been doing for generations.
Most of the gourmet places I have bumped into utilize the wrong kind of oven (often conveyor ovens), cook their pizzas for too long and throw goofy, unbalanced combinations of toppings on top of a bunky crust. That ain’t gourmet folks, that’s just baloney.
There are surely exceptions to this rule and I’m not saying every single one makes crappy pizza, but the pizza hairs on the back of your neck should snap to attention whenever you run across a joint slinging the “gourmet” label. There’s simply no need for the constant advertising hype and gimmicks. Just make great pizza and shut the ‘eff up already!
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