I’m certainly not claiming credit for the first honey on a pizza or anything like that. Paulie Gee’s was artfully using Mike’s Hot Honey long before a bee’s butt ever kissed one of my pies. For whatever reason, I wasn’t paying attention. I’m not sure others are either. I see a lot of pies at pizzamaking.com and I visit a lot of pizzerias – it just isn’t used much. That’s a shame.

I’ve found honey adds nice variety when used on all sorts of pies. I’ve used it in place of Meyer lemon oil on my prosciutto and arugula pie, drizzled it over spicy hot sopressata pies and I’ve made dessert pies with creamy mild and ripened cheeses, nuts, fruits and lots of honey (have a bottle of Port handy). It just works in so many situations. If you want to drink white wine with pizza, try cranking up the spice and drizzle on some honey.

Of the pies I’ve tried with honey, here are two of my favorites. The second was inspired by Paulie Gee’s Cherry Jones.

Fig and Gorgonzola
Mascarpone and Gorgonzola cheeses are mixed in approximately a 5:1 ratio. Sautée the fresh figs in butter, sugar and brandy until slightly tender then allow them to cool in the pan with the syrup. Once cool, the figs pick up most of the now thick syrup when gently stirred. Top the pie with a medium to light amount of the cheese and the figs. After baking, drape two thin slices of Prosciutto di Parma over the pizza and drizzle the pie with local wildflower honey.

Sweet and Spicy Sausage
This pie is topped with mozzarella di bufala, homemade spicy fennel sausage, dried cranberries refreshed in Armagnac and crushed red pepper flakes. After the bake, a drizzle of orange blossom honey and fresh basil are added.

One last note – all honey is not honey. Find a locally produced wildflower honey or something you know is special or interesting. The big grocery store jug of honey just isn’t the same.

With multiple cheeses, are you truly savoring every flavor and aroma or just eating? Do all the cheeses even work with the wine? Rather than sample three or four cheeses with a single wine and have the myriad of flavors blend into a sea of obscurity, tasting one wine with one cheese lets you focus your senses — each taste reveals new layers of flavor previously hidden.

Last weekend, I had opened a 2008 Hall Cabernet to see if I wanted to put down a few bottles. After breathing for about six hours, the wine was ripe and opulent with copious dark fruit balanced with cedar and hints of licorice. To match, I brought out some Piave Vecchio that had been further “aging” in my refrigerator for some time.

Somewhat similar to Parmigiano-Reggiano, I enjoy Piave with a wide range of wines – from the medium bodied such as Valpolicella or Lambrusco to bigger Brunellos and Cabs. In this case, the tight, youthful flavors of the Hall cabernet were an intriguing contrast with the aged, refined nuances of the cheese; the hints of light tropical fruit in the Piave helped round out the intense dark fruit flavors and bouquet of the young wine; and the nutty flavors worked well with the very subtle oak.

Wanting something more playful, my wife opened a bottle Heart and Soul Moscato NV. It’s light, sweet, and fruity with a crisp finish. Fruity, sweet wines often pair well with ripe cheeses, so I pulled out some Taleggio. It’s melt-in-your-mouth soft, a little tangy and ripe, and yet still buttery and relatively mild. The moscato’s sweetness balanced the cheese’s ripeness; the wine’s fruit complemented the tangy fruity finish of the cheese and the crispness played against the rich, buttery texture.

Would three or four appropriate cheeses have been enjoyable with these wines? For sure, but I believe what is gained in depth more than makes up for what is missed in variety. The wonderful subtle combinations that only reveal themselves after repeated tasting without the distraction of competing flavors are worth seeking out.

from iggies website

Iggies, one of Baltimore’s most popular pizzerias, will now be open five days a week instead of six. The new hours are:

Closed Monday
Closed Tuesday
12pm to 9pm Wednesday - Saturday
12pm to 8pm Sunday

A well deserved extra day off for the owner-operated Mount Vernon pizzeria.

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

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.