I’ve struggled a bit to find a way to help the victims of the Tsunami, but today Pizza chefs in Bagalore, India have teamed up to bake an enormous pizza in order to raise funds for Tsunami relief. This 120 foot pizza was made using 120 Kg of flour and 120 Kg of cheese! Now that’s a great way to use a pizza.

Read the full article …

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

Funny thing happened this weekend… I have been working on the cell structure of my dough recently, trying to make my crust have larger voids (less like bread) around the rim. After spending some time in the forums at pizzamaking.com, I decided to try a popular version of New York Style dough based on a recipe by Tom Lehman.

The dough recipe I used was:
9 oz. Water
3/4 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp Oil
13.5 oz. Hi Gluten Flour
2.5 oz Pasta Flour (used for the semolina content)
1 Tbl Dry Egg Whites (for brown crust)
1 tsp Active Dry Yeast

I mixed the dough Thursday evening with big hopes for the upcoming weekend.

That night, I was awakened by my wife telling me that she was in labor!! We rushed to the hospital and my son, Will was born Friday evening! We were so excited that I forgot about my pizza dough until Saturday afternoon when I began despising the food in the hospital cafeteria.

I ran home for a shower and a quick meal that evening. When I threw open the door of the refrigerator, there was a beautifully risen dough ball staring at me. I decided that pizza counts as a “quick meal” so I threw it onto the counter and stretched it!

The pie was topped with pepperoni and cheese and baked at 480 degrees for 9 minutes. It looked great and tasted even better. Unfortunately, I may have thought that about any pizza at that point due to the condition of my taste buds and the lack of sleep.

The project was a failure in terms of voids. It still lacked the open irregular holes that I really want to see. My quest for large voids continues.

Also, my camera was at the hospital – here’s a lame still from my camcorder.

The kids and I decided to make our own funnel cake tonight! After all, what’s better for a kid than some grease-soaked dough covered with sugar at 8:00 PM?

I wasn’t sure what this would involve and I couldn’t find a funnel in my house without motor oil on it, but we thought we’d give it a try and see what would happen.

The first step was to pour vegetable oil into the bottom of a frying pan about 1/2 inch deep and heat it to 325 degrees. Next we mixed the batter.

The recipe we used for the batter was simple:
1 cup Flour
3/4 cup Milk
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Almond Extract
1/8 tsp Salt
1 Egg

After blending the batter, you are supposed to drizzle it into the oil with a funnel (thus, the name). However, we used a kitchen beaker and it worked just fine. The batter stays in the oil for 3 minutes or until it browns then you flip it and allow the other side to fry. The batter should spring to life when it hits the hot oil. Once they are browned and springy, remove the cake and place it on a paper towel. The final step is to shake an obscene amount of confectioner’s sugar onto the top of the cake and serve!

This was great fun and a big hit with the kids. Be careful when playing with hot oil in a frying pan as it can splash if your funnel cake slips out of the salad tongs you are using and cause boiling oil to spray your face nearly scorching your eye (trust me on this).

Here are a few pics to get you in the mood…

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com