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

Delicious Danish

Why do I enjoy this baking thing? Maybe its that satisfaction of watching people enjoy something you have created. That goes for all walks of life. It seems that the longer you take to do something (however not in all cases) the better the pay off is. This brings me to my new adventure into the world of Pastry. In bringing food to work for my peeps to try, several people have asked me if I had ever made any danishes. I mostly stay on the bread side, but a danish is just a sweet bread dough not really a cake. I have read about pastry dough and its complexity of layers. I spotted a book at BAMM (Books a Million) titled Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft. It looked really good, and had a lot of techniques and such. However its $70 and that is a little steep for now. So the internet will have to do! I am looking all over the web for a good Danish Pastry Dough Recipe to try. I will update this blog as soon I attempt pastry for the first time. Stand by!