©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

In my previous post, I mentioned making 6 dough balls and only cooking 4 of them for our party. The two dough balls that did not get used were from a batch of dough for which I accidentally omitted the olive oil! In the name of pizza education I decided to cook them and see if I could notice a significant difference.

I have read that olive oil relaxes the gluten and allows you to easier stretch fresh dough. In addition, I read that it can add some flavor depending on the amount. After the dough finished mixing, I noticed it was slightly more dry, but I did not stretch it right away. In fact, the dough was about 48 hours risen by the time I stretched it. This meant that the lack of oil was much less noticeable during the stretch since the dough had risen quite a bit.

I stretched the dough into a 16 inch pizza blank and topped it with cheese, ham, pepperoni and whatever else I could find in the fridge from earlier. After baking, there was no visible difference in the pizza, but the dough felt a bit more crisp. The bit was more crisp as well. I could see how eliminating the oil would be a good way to give a pizza a bit more crunch. I noticed somewhat of a difference in flavor, but the dough was quite far along making it difficult to narrow the difference down to the omission of oil.

Having eaten this pizza, I have decided that I will continue to use oil, but it is nice to know that forgetting the oil is not a deal breaker. I’ll have to experiment with this more later.

We invited 12 people over (and their children) for the largest pizza meal at our home, yet! This flat bread feast was only slightly smaller than the one I prepared on vacation this summer (6 pizzas, two ovens). I actually made 6 dough balls in case there were more people than expected. I began making dough the night before. Since each round of mixing takes about a half hour with my bread machine, I decided to attempt doubling the recipe amounts so that I could get two dough balls out of each batch. Each large dough ball was halved and stored in plastic containers in the refrigerator.

I realized after removing the first batch of dough from the mixer that I had forgotten the olive oil. Not sure of the effect, I marked these and set them apart from the other batches. It turned out that I didn’t need to bake them since I only made 4 pies.

The following evening, I made two pepperoni pizzas, one cheese pizza and one vegetable pizza with green peppers, onions and black olives. I was producing a pizza every 10 minutes for 40 minutes. All of our guests seemed quite pleased with the pizza. Even the children were happily munching.

I didn’t have much time for photos, but I grabbed this shot of my friend enjoying a hot slice before we hit the streets to trick-or-treat.

If I were a kid, this is definetly what I would be this year for halloween. Maybe I should have made my kids dress like pizza slices…

If you want to make your kids dress up like pizza, buy this Pizza Costume at BuyCostumes.com …

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

I’m not one to leave dough in the refrigerator, so I had to make a second boli tonight. Everything was the same as the day before, but for one mistake. I set the oven to 470 degrees rather than 370 degrees and the boli cooked too fast. The outer shell browned very quickly, causing the cheese to boil through the air vents. Unfortunately, some of the dough in the middle did not cook as much as I would have liked. This was a hard lesson to learn, but I won’t forget ever again. Most of the stromboli was still good. Here’s a pic…

 

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

  

©2004 goCrawford.com

 

Every now and then we get requests for stromboli. This time, it was my wife that asked for it. So, I did up a batch of boli dough and allowed it to rise in the breadmaker for about an hour. After it had risen a bit, I stretched it. Stretching fresh dough is always a challenge.

Once stretched, I spread ham, pepperoni, provolone, mozzarella, ricotta and the trademark squirt of mustard onto the dough. Next, I rolled the boli and painted it with egg. I baked it at 370 degrees for about 20 minutes. I usually watch the boli until I see it start to boil through the air vents.

I had sauce left over from the test batch made with Delallo’s tomato puree, so I warmed it up for dipping. Things were delicious. Here are the pics…