Pizza

Category: Breads > Yeast > Pizza

It is always pretty cool when you make your own pizza from scratch. It's not hard to do but takes a little time to allow the dough to rise. If you are planning on making pizza from scratch, make sure to leave yourself plenty of time. Or, you can make your crust up ahead of time, freeze it, and pull it out when you are ready to use.



Recipe:

• 2 tsp. Yeast
  
• 7/8 cup Lukewarm Water
  
• 2 tbsp. Olive Oil
  
• 3 cups Flour
  
• 1-1/4 tsp. Salt
  

Dissolve yeast with a pinch of sugar, in 2 tablespoons of the lukewarm water (about 105 degrees). Let the yeast and water sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, until the mixture has bubbled and expanded. If yeast doesn't bubble discard it and start over with different yeast.

Combine the dissolved yeast with the remainder of the ingredients. Mix and knead everything together using the bread hook attachment until you've made a soft, smooth dough. It should take 4 to 5 minutes at second speed, and the dough should barely clean the sides of the bowl, perhaps sticking a bit at the bottom. Don't over-knead the dough; it should hold together, but can still look fairly rough on the surface.

Place dough in a grease bowl and cover. Let sit 90 minutes until puffy. Use dough for one large pizza or divide dough in half for two smaller pizzas.

In pan, spray with non-stick cooking spray and drizzle with olive oil. Place the dough in the prepared pan(s). Press it over the bottom of the pan, stretching it towards the edges. You'll probably get about two-thirds of the way there before the dough starts shrinking back; walk away for 15 minutes. Cover the dough while you're away, so it doesn't dry out.

When you come back, you should be able to pat the dough closer to the corners of the pan. Repeat the rest and dough-stretch one more time, if necessary; your goal is to get the dough to fill the pan as fully as possible.

Allow the dough to rise, covered, till it's noticeably puffy, about 90 minutes Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Bake the pizza on the lower oven rack till it looks and feels set on top and is just beginning to brown around the edge of the crust, but is still pale on top. This will take about about 10 to 12 minutes.

Top pizza how you like and then place it back in the oven, on the top rack, for an additional 10 to 15 minutes until dough is browned and cheese is melted. Let cool on metal rack and serve.

Baking Tips:

• Store brought spaghetti sauce makes a good tomato base for your pizza.
  
• If you want to freeze the crust for later use, after you bake the crust for the first time (before you put the toppings on) cool, wrap well, and freeze.
  

Marzipan

Category: Fillings > Marzipan

Marzipan has been around for a long time. It is a sweetened almond paste. Marzipan can be used to cover a cake, like fondant. If can be covered in chocolate and eaten as a candy or it can be a cake filling. However, probably the best known usage of marzipan is shaping and coloring it into little fruits and other sculptures which are then eaten.

Many people wonder what the difference between almond paste and marzipan is. Almond paste is just a paste made of almonds. Marzipan is almond paste which has had sugar and egg whites added to it. The only flavoring that is allowed in traditional marzipan is maybe a little rose water but a lot of modern marzipan has almond extract added to increase the flavor.

After you make marzipan, it will look and fill kind of like play dough.



You can add food coloring to make different colors. If you knead marzipan too much, it will become oily. This almost always happens as you mix the coloring into it. If it gets too oily, you can wipe off the oil with a paper towel. I suggest letting your marzipan sit in the refrigerator a little bit after you add the color before you shape it to help with the oil.

Marzipan sticks together well, so you don't need any adhesive when sculpting.







Recipe:

• 2/3 cup Water
  
• 2 cups Sugar
  
• 1/8 tsp. Cream of Tartar
  
• 4 cups Almond Meal
  
• 2 Egg Whites
  
• Powdered sugar for dusting
  

Sprinkle powdered sugar over a clean counter or work area where you will be kneading the marzipan. Fill a large pan with cold water. Make sure your pan is large enough that the pan you are cooking your marzipan in can fix it.

Place water and sugar is a large saucepan and heat on low until the sugar dissolves.
Add the cream of tartar and increase heat to medium. Bring to a boil and cover for 3 minutes. Uncover and boil until the temperature reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

Place the bottom of the saucepan in the cold water you’ve prepared, stirring the sugar mixture constantly until it becomes thick and creamy. Stir in the ground almonds and the egg whites, the place back over low heat and stir for 2 minutes more until the mixture is thick.

Place the marzipan onto your prepared work surface, and turn it with a metal spatula until it cools down enough to touch. Coat your hands in powdered sugar and begin to knead the marzipan, working it until it is smooth and pliant.

Your marzipan can now be used immediately or stored by wrapping it in plastic wrap and keeping it in an airtight container.

Spritz Cookies

Category: Cookies > Press Cookies > Spritz

You may have noticed no post yesterday. I decided to use the day to proof read and fix some typos on the older posts. Ironically, it turns out it was 8:30 PM before I got around to it. =/ It took two hours but I did read through all the posts. Hopefully, I caught everything that needed fixing.

A little while back, my cousin's daughter of four came over to be babysat. I thought it would be fun to make cookies with her. At first, I wanted to make sugar cookies but my mom suggested press cookies. So, I pulled the old cookie press out to see if it would still work. It looked like it would so that was decided.

We made the dough, and for some additional fun, decided to divide the dough up, mix it all different colors, and throw it all back into the big bowl to create rainbow spritz.

The effect was cool but sadly, our dough was too soft and the press didn't work too well. Our spritz cookies came out like blobs. In the end, I started to just roll the dough into circles.



Afterwords, my mom and I decided it was time to invest in a new cookie press. After a bit of research, I decided this one would do.



I tried a new recipe with the new press and it worked wonderfully. We put sprinkles (both store brought and homemade) on the cookies before baking them and the cookies turned out looking good and tasting great.



Recipe:

• 1 cup Soften Butter (2 sticks)
  
• 3/4 cup Brown Sugar
  
• 1 Egg
  
• 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
  
• 2-1/2 cups Flour
  
• 1 tsp. Salt
  
• 1/8 tsp. Baking Soda
  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar. Beat until it is creamy. Separate the egg. Add the yolk and vanilla. Reserve egg white in a bowl and set aside. Sift together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add it to the mixture and blend well.

Take the egg white, add about 1/2 tsp. of water and beat well to create an egg wash.

Shape dough into the rough shape of your cookie press and place inside. Press dough through desired cookie press disc onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Brush cookie tops with the egg wash.

You can add sprinkles to the cookies as desired.

Place cookies in oven for 8 to 10 minutes. When removed from oven, let sit 1 minute on cookie sheet and then gently loosen them. Remove cookies to wire rack to cool.

Baking Tips:

• There are two tricks to getting good spritz cookies. 1. Make sure your dough is the right consistency. It should be firm kind of like sugar cookie dough. 2. Make sure you are using a good cookie press.
  
• You can refrigerate the dough for a few minutes if it gets too soft.
  
• You can refrigerate the cookie sheets to help get the dough to stick better.
  
• Don't use parchment paper on your cookie sheets. The cookies won't press out well.
  
• You don't have to add any decorations to your spritz cookies. However, if you do there are several things you can do. You can color the cookie dough. You can add sprinkles before you bake your cookies. You can add sprinkles after you bake your cookies.
  
• Don't use sugar cookie dough in a cookie press. It might break. Make sure your dough is a spritz dough.
  
• Store brought spritz dough tends to be really hard. Some people complained that it broke their cookie press. I recommend making your own. It is really easy.
  

Hamburger Pie

Category: Tarts > Savory Tarts > Quiche > Hamburger Pie

No picture for this dish. Turns out the pan I wanted to bake it in was dirty so I had to use a different, deeper one. This, of course, made it not very picture worthy. It was still tasty though =).

Anyways, Hamburger Pie is a quiche made with ground beef. It's an easy to make, fast and filling dinner.

Recipe:

• 1 pound Ground Beef
  
• 1 small Onion
  
• 1-1/2 cups Milk
  
• 3/4 cups Bisquick
  
• 3 Eggs
  
• 1/2 tsp. Salt
  
• 1/4 tsp. Pepper
  
• 1 cup Shredded Cheese
  

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a medium skillet, place ground beef, chopped onion, salt and pepper. Cook until beef is browned. In a medium mixing bowl, add Bisquick, milk, and eggs. Beat well until combined.

Place ground beef in a pie pan and pour the Bisquick mixture on top. Place in oven and bake for 25 minutes. Take out of oven and sprinkle with cheese. Continue baking for 5 to 8 minutes until cheese is melted and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Snowballs

Category: Cakes > Butter Cakes > Snowballs

No, these snowballs are not like the pink snowballs you can buy at the gas station but these are kind of similar. These snowballs are cut white cake that are covered with marshmallow frosting and coconut. Even if you don't want to add the frosting and coconut, the cake is very good.



This isn't the best picture but it was the only one I could find that I took of the snowballs.

Recipe:
Cake:

• 1 White Cake Mix
  
• 1 cup (8 oz.) Sour Cream
  
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
  
• 3 Eggs
  
• 1 tsp. Vanilla
  

Frosting:

• 1 cup Sugar
  
• 4 tbsp. Water
  
• 4 Egg Whites
  
• 14 oz. Marshmallow Creme
  
• 12 oz. Grated Coconut
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13"x9" pan.

Put the cake mix, sour creme, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Increase speed to medium and beat for an additional 2 minutes. The batter will be thick. Pour into greased pan and place in oven. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes and then remove from pan. Let continue to cool on a wire rack.

Let egg whites get to room temperature. Place sugar, water and egg whites in a medium saucepan. Cook over low heat, beating on high continuously with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Remove pan from heat and add marshmallow creme. Beat on high speed until stiff peaks form.

Cut cake into to equal 1-1/2" squares pieces. Place the cut cake on parchment covered cookie sheets, spaced about 3/4" apartment. Pour the marshmallow icing over the cake squares and then cover them with the coconut.

Place the cookie sheets with the snowballs in the refrigerator to chill for about 30 minutes before serving.

Baking Tips:

• Just a heads up, making theses are a little messy because of the sticky marshmallow icing.
  
• Don't make the marshmallow icing until you are ready to use it. If it harden ups too much, you can warm it up over a double boiler.
  

Bagels

Category: Breads > Yeast Breads > Bagels

Bagels are a unique bread in that they are boiled and then baked. They are easy enough to purchase but they are pretty fun to make on your own and yummy.



Recipe:

• 4 cups Bread Flour
  
• 1 tbsp. Sugar
  
• 1-1/2 tsp. Salt
  
• 1 tbsp. Vegetable Oil
  
• 2 tsp. Instant Yeast
  
• 1-1/4 cups of Warm Water
  
• 1 tbsp. Baking Soda
  

Mix all ingredients in a bowl. The dough should feel stiff but if you can't incorporate all the flour you can add a tad bit more water.

Use a mixer with the dough hook and knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is uniform and smooth.

Cut the dough into 8 equal sized balls and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Take each ball and roll it into snakes. When the snake is a bit longer than the width of your two hands, wrap it around one hand and use your palm to attach the two ends together to form a doughnut shape.

Let your bagels rest for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, bring a pot of water to boil and add the baking soda to the water. Also, grease a large baking tray or cookie sheet.

Once you bagels look puffy, place each one in the boiling water. Boil for about a minute and then turn them over and boil them for another minute. Your bagels will expand in the water. Take them out and let dry for a minute and then place them on your baking tray.

Put the tray in the oven, and after 10 minutes, flip the bagels over and bake for another 10 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes.

Baking Tips:

• Bush an egg wash on top of the bagels before you place in oven to give them a darker, more finished look.
  
• If you want to add seeds, like sesame seeds, to the top of the bagels, dip the bagel in the seeds after you take it out of the boiling water.
  
• If you want to add raisins, blueberries, or anything else to the bagels, do so towards the end of kneading the dough.
  
• You can also place corn meal on your baking tray to help the bagels from sticking to the pan.