Wednesday, April 23, 2008

What Rises from the Ashes

Hello all, Brandon here, back again to let you know what I have been up to. In my last blog I talked about making pastry, mainly danishes. Well I found everything I needed to make them and gave it a shot. I was on my second turn (folding the dough) and when I went to put it in the fridge and the dough slipped out of my hands and hit the floor. The butter was everywhere, needless to say I was quite pissed. Since I did not have anymore butter to make another batch I put the project on the back burner. Next time I go grocery shopping then I can try this again, but just being more careful :-)

So I still wanted to bake something in the following days, but what? Thank god for Ashley who gives me ideas left and right. She was saying how much she wanted a Pizza Hut Pan pizza. So I decided to use the recipe and techniques I rememebered from my days at the Hut. The dry ingredients at the Hut were pre packaged. We just added the exact amount of water to it. So I had to break down what I thought they were. I will list the recipe later after I tweak it.


I combined all these ingredients in my mixer and kneaded till I got a smooth ball. I cut the dough into two equal pieces and then rolled them to a 9 inch circle. I then coated two 10" aluminum cake pans with vegetable oil. I placed the flattened dough into the pans and sprayed the edge with non-stick spray. I covered the pans and let them rise in a 120F oven (Pizza Hut uses a proofer, but the oven was the closest thing I had) for 1 1/2 hours. After they had risen I placed the pans in the fridge and let them rest for 4 hours (we did this at the Hut as well it was called "Retardation"). About 1 hour before I removed the dough from the fridge I preheated the oven to 450F. I took the pans out and sauced, cheesed and topped the pizzas. They baked in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Now it did not brown as much as I would have like it. I do think the hut used so much corn meal. They might have used milk power in the dough to make it brown up more. Next time I make the pizzas I will tweak the recipe and post it up and how to make it step-by-step (day by day, nevermind). Just keep your eyes peeled!



- The Chesterfield Bread Baker

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