Making Pizza

I don't think there are many those who don't enjoy a fresh slice of pizza. I have been trying for ages to make the pizza crust of my dreams - that is a fluffy crust - but it never turned out quite right. A couple of days ago I have run over this bread recipe in one of my cooking books. I think it's a really good recipe and it is super easy to make. It takes a long time to make because... well... bread takes a long time to make. Luckily, you'll probably spend 10 minutes preparing the dough; the rest of the 2 hours involves leaving the dough to rise and baking it. Overall it's not too bad and it's definitely worth it. On top of it, I'm sure your family will be impressed.

Ingredients:
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp sugar
374 g white strong flour/bread flour
50 ml olive oil
extra flour to sprinkle
ice




1. Warm up 80 ml of water. (the water has to be warm not hot)
2. Mix yeast and sugar and add to the warm water.
3. Let the mixture stand for about 10 minutes until bubbles appear.

4. Put 250 g of the flour in a large bowl with two teaspoons salt and make a well in the center.
5. In the well add the yeast mixture, the oil and 230 ml of water.
6. Knead for 5 minutes; the mixture will be quite wet at this stage.
7. Lighly grease a bowl with oil (I just wet a napkin with a bit of oil and wipe it around the inside of the bowl) and put the dough in that bowl; cover the bowl with plastic foil

Tip: It's ideal to place the bowl in a warm place. What I do is turn on the over and leave it on for about 1 minute. After, I turn it off and place the bowl inside. Make sure it's not too hot in the oven; you don't want to bake the dough just yet.

8. After 30 minutes or more your dough will have doubled in size.

9. At this point take it out and knead in the remaining flour. Your dough will deflate back to its original size. Cover the bowl again and place it in the warm place for a second time.
10. The dough will rise again and finito; the process is done!

11. Now it's the fun part! Wipe a large baking tray with oil, sprinkle with flour and slap the dough on. Make sure you don't punch the dough down. You want to keep it as fluffy as possible. Preheat the oven at 415F or 210C. Add the pizza sauce, the toppings and voila! It's ready for the oven.

My pizza is a medium size but I should have spread out the dough a bit more. Keep in mind that the dough will rise a bit a baking. This recipe will make a large pizza.

12. Place the pizza in the middle of the oven. Underneath it place an oven safe bowl filled with ice. Bake for 20 minutes without opening the oven. After the 20 minutes remove the water bowl and bake the pizza for another 10 minutes.



That's it! Bon appetit!

Super Easy To Make Pie

I have to admit that no matter on what diet I would be on and how badly I would try to loose weight, my day is not complete without dessert... even if in small portions.

I am not an amazing cook but I'm always on the look for good recipes. Although baking is the hardest, in my opinion, as so many things could go wrong, I'm always excited about it.

Anyway, so today I've made a peach-strawberry pie.





Here's the recipe, in case you'll want to try to make something really easy, yet tasty.

PIE PASTRY:
2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup Crisco (or a vegetable shortening of your choice... I can't recommend butter or margarine as I've never tried them for this recipe)
1/2 ice cold water

First, add the shortening to the flour and salt. To mix it up you can use a pastry cutter, if you have one, if you don't use a fork or a potato masher. The mixture should have a crumbly appearance. Then, pour the cold water over the mixture and, using your hand, mix it all up. The batter should all come together. Put this mixture into the fridge and make your filling. You can buy pie filling but I feel that making your own is so much better. No chemicals added and you can come up with a zillion flavors.

I've made my PIE FILLING up so the following quantities are approximations.
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
5 peaches peeled, sliced
10 strawberries, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch (optional - if your mixture is too runny, the cornstarch will thicken it)

I put the butter in a pan over medium heat and when it melted I added the fruit slices. After about 5 minutes, when the fruits lost their crunch, I added the sugar and cooked it for about 5 more minutes. When I saw my mixture was too wet, I added the cornstarch and mixed it in fast and in about 10 seconds, I had a ticker consistency.

Now, the pastry can come out of the fridge. Take half of it and lay it over a lightly floured surface and roll it into an approximate circle bigger in circumference than that of the pie pan ( you need the pastry to dress the walls of the pan, not just the bottom). After placing the pie pastry into the pan, add the filling and then roll out the rest of the pastry dough into a lid for your pie. I've done a lattice top but you can just do a simple plain top with a hole in the middle. Attach your lid to the pie.

Bake it in a preheated oven at 425 Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes or until your top has become golden brown. ... and remember, don't open the over for the first 30 minutes! The making of the pie took me less than 30 minutes.

Have fun with it if you try it!