Fat-Free Whole-Wheat Tortillas, aka Chapati Bread

JG made lentils for dinner this weekend and decided to try his hand at chapati bread, which are thin round flatbreads usually made with at least some whole-wheat flour.  He'd planned to have it all done when I got home from work (my hero) but the cookbook he used just isn't a good one (the flavors are great but the liquid ratios or the cooking times are _always_ way off, but never the same way twice) and the lentils weren't ready when they were supposed to be, so I helped with chapati while he finished up the dal. [Plus I wanted to tinker with the recipe, using all whole-wheat and some salt... I think the salt was an omission.]  It's a super simple process and they turned out great for scooping up the lentils, but they inspired JG in another way.

"These taste like flour tortillas"
"Well, they kinda are, but without the lard. They won't keep."
"But these right now are flour tortillas.  It makes me want to make fajitas."

I had to agree.  I've always shunned flour tortillas because they're made with lard or butter and refined flour, whereas corn tortillas are made from whole grains with no fat.  You can get whole-wheat versions now, but they've still got some kind of fat to keep them soft... but classic Tex-Mex fajitas really do require some type of flour tortilla.  I don't know why, but they're my only exception to the corn tortilla rule... but I've never been really okay with that until now.

A few days later we made more hot, fresh chapati tortillas and cooked up some flank steak (no skirt up here), onions, and peppers on the cast iron.  We still need to perfect the cast iron recipe before it goes public, but the tortillas were spot on.

Recipe: Fat-Free Whole-Wheat Tortillas or Chapati Bread

Bread Basics

I started baking my own bread when a trip to the grocery store revealed that most of the whole-grain breads used mostly of enriched [non-whole wheat] flour and all of the sandwich breads used corn syrup. Bread need only have flour, water, yeast and salt, and if you are looking for a squishier bread some fat and sweetener, but they should be lower on the list than everything except the salt.

Over time, I've developed a very loose formula for bread. Baking your own bread is not inherently difficult... There is a certain mystique attached to it these days, but small children used to do this in olden times and you can, too! [I've even included some step-by-step pictures after the jump.]

It may take a few gluten bricks to get the hang of it, but you can always slice them very thin and use them for crostini or take your true failures to the park and feed the ducks [...or, if you're my brother, the varmits which you will later shoot]. Soon you, too, will be able to amaze your friends and family by serving homemade bread(gasp!) without breaking a sweat.

I think a natural yeast starter (aka sourdough starter) makes every bread more interesting {and not necessarily sour}, but you can certainly just use dry yeast and pump up the flavor with other things. I usually add a teaspoon of dry yeast along with the starter, because the one I have now just doesn't seem as strong. If you are interested in building a natural yeast culture (or "fridge pet"), I referenced this website called Sourdough Home when I was getting started ~4-5 years ago now. I abandoned my original starters (I had two) last summer because it was too much effort to keep them going on the month long car trip to Yankee Land. I created a new one once we settled in our little attic.

[As for people who pride themselves on the longevity of their starters, I have to say that an individual yeast cell doesn't live indefinitely and there are only a few strains of yeast that can handle the life of a fridge pet, so sooner or later your unique-to-your-house wild yeast culture will whittle itself down to a couple strains from your larger geographic region. I'm pretty sure my starter is the same as every other in the greater Bay State area {and I bet there're plenty)... and that's perfectly okay.]

Recipe: Basic Bread
Sweeteners and fats are optional for more tender sandwich-style bread. Filling options are listed below the recipe. With the exception of spices, nothing should be added before kneading as it will tear the gluten strands you're trying to build. Free-form loaves -- those not baked in a pan -- are best when baked on a baking or pizza stone.

~1 cup starter [optional]
1 cup liquid [water, milk, yogurt, beer, juice, meat stock, a splash of soy sauce...]
1 tablespoon sweetener for a golden crust [honey, sugar, maple, sorghum]
1 tablespoon fat for sandwich-style [various oils, butter...]
2 1/2 - 3 cups flours [no more than 1 cup of l rye, barley, buckwheat, or oat)
1 tablespoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 teaspoon table salt

1 egg, beaten, to glaze [optional]

Combine everything but salt and egg glaze in bowl of standing mixer, and stir into shaggy ball with a rubber spatula. Cover and let sit for at least 17 minutes for gluten formation. Uncover and add salt. Attach dough hook and stir on medium-low speed [“3” on my KitchenAid] for 7 minutes. Add more flour, a tablespoon at a time, if dough does not clear sides of the bowl after 5 minutes. Add more liquid -- a tablespoon at a time-- if dough does not form solid ball around hook.

Let dough rise in bowl until doubled in size ~1.5-2 hours. Scrape onto floured countertop or pastry cloth [pictured] and stretch into 8x12 rectangle [and scatter with optional fillings, below].
To make a simple loaf: Roll tightly from short end, tuck ends under, and pinch the seams together.
To make a twisted loaf: Roll tightly from the long side, pinch the seam, and roll it out a little skinner (like a play-dough snake). Pinch the log in the center to make two sausage links, and twist the links over one another.
After shaping, place loaf seam side down on parchment or in a lightly greased loaf pan.

Turn on oven to 400F. Let rise again until roughly doubled in size and dough no longer springs back when poked, ~45 minutes-1 hour. Brush with beaten egg, place in oven and reduce temperature to 375F. Bake ~50 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 200F. Cool on wire rack ~2 hours before slicing.

* You can fill your bread with up to 1 cup of whatever combination of fresh or dried fruit, cheese, nuts, veggies, olives, herbs can be added after the first rise and before shaping the loaf. Anything that may release water or oil (really anything but dried fruit, nuts, and herbs) should be dusted with flour to absorb some of it and prevent big holes from forming while it bakes.

12-Hour Whole-Wheat French Bread

I have a confession to make. I haven't been sharing my bread with you.

I'm sorry.

The problem is this: I don't follow any recipes, I don't closely measure how much of anything I put in, I almost never make the same thing twice, and I have a sourdough culture that I add for flavor and supplement with more reliable instant yeast. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but once you know how to bake a decent loaf, you can really wing it... and I do, at least once a week, with whatever I have on hand. End of a bottle of olives=olive bread; leftover polenta=mutli-grain, sale on sunflower seeds= seeded loaf, and so on. I can't tell how much of anything went into it because throwing things in at random necessitates a certain amount of tweaking as you go to get the texture right, sometimes I add an extra 1/4 cup water or so, sometimes I'm way off on the liquids and have to add a couple cups more flour -- and use the big loaf pan.

There is, however, one exception to my freewheeling bread style, and that is French bread. If I want a deep golden crust with that special chewy-soft center, I measure everything and proceed in the same way [almost] every single time. It's a little fussy. It requires adding the flour by weight. This is what restaurants and bakeries do to make every loaf look the same.It's what you must do if you want specific results... even I've embraced that. I've also embraced that this recipe really works best with a little high-protein bread flour. I tried very hard to banish it, but I simply can't from this particular recipe and I'm not ashamed.

The last thing about this recipe is that it really does benefit from a sturdy standing mixer. Of course you can do it by hand [like everyone did until the last century] but it requires a thing called "crashing," which can be fun but the people downstairs don't appreciate it. The mixer is much, much easier.

The bottom line? This bread recipe works every time.

Recipe: Whole-Grain French Bread
** Bear with me, I'm working on making the recipes more printer-friendly**
I use starter for flavor and instant yeast for rise. You can use a medium lager like Budweiser in lieu of water in the overnight "sponge" for more flavor. The yogurt also adds flavor and protein, you can use water or skim milk [no fat, fat inhibits gluten]. This takes 11-ish hours start to finish, but you can leave the "sponge" for longer if it suits your needs. Start at night for morning baking or in the morning for evening baking. [or start in the afternoon, stick the sponge in the fridge, and finish the next afternoon. Did I say I did this the same way every time?I think I have a problem with rules.]

Makes one large loaf or two slender baguettes. [See? More options!]

Special tools: standing mixer, kitchen scale, baking stone [or sturdy rimless cookie sheet, baking peel [or 2nd rimless cookie sheet] spray bottle filled with water.

For the sponge:
6 oz water (3/4 cup)
>6 oz bread flour [a.k.a. high protein]
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast [a.k.a. rapid rise]
3 oz sourdough culture (~1/4 cup, optional)

Stir together in the bowl of your standing mixer, cover with plastic wrap, and leave out on the counter ~8 hours or overnight. [Or refrigerate up to 24 hours.]

For the loaf:
4 oz nonfat plain yogurt (or skim milk)
4 oz whole wheat flour
6 oz white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
1 tablespoon water

1 egg for glaze

Once the batter doubles in size and had be come light and airy looking with lots of holes -- sponge-like -- add yogurt, remaining flour and yeast. Stir until all flour is incorporated into a shaggy ball. Cover and let rest 17 minutes while gluten forms.

Add salt. Attach dough hook and mix on low for ~1 minute or until dough clings to the hook. Increase speed to maximum [10 on my KitchenAid] and "knead" for 6 minutes, keeping a hand on the base of the machine most of the time so it doesn't walk itself off you counter. [This is what mimics "crashing," where you slam the dough against the counter repeatedly.] Add the tablespoon of water after 3 minutes. It'll get sloppy for a bit, but then come back together.By the time it's done, you should be able to stretch the dough thin enough to see light through it without any tearing [a.k.a. the "windowpane test"... Some people say you can't do this well with whole grains. I beg to differ.]

Eyeball your dough ball. Find a bowl double the size, spray with cooking spray or rub with a little oil, transfer the ball, and cover with plastic wrap, OR find a larger bowl (or stock pot), spray or rub with oil, transfer the ball, and draw a line in the oil with your finger that shows where double should be, then cover with plastic wrap. Let sit until dough fills bowl or reaches fill line, ~1.5 to 2 hours.

Turn on your oven to 500F. Position your baking stone [or heavy duty cookie sheet] on the upper rack, positioned in the second highest slot. Lightly dust a sheet of parchment paper [or smooth metal countertop] with flour. Pull the dough from the bowl (divide in half for baguettes) and stretch (don't pat) into a ~7"x14" rectangle (or 2- 7"x7" squares). From the short end, loosely fold in thirds [like folding a letter for an envelope]. Using both hands, grab the dough from the far side and roll it under, tucking in the edge with your fingers. Repeat ~4 times or until you reach the other side. [You should now have a log ~12" long.] Pinch seam and lay seam-side down on the parchment. Dust with flour, drape with plastic wrap, and let rise until nearly doubled again, ~30 to 45 minutes.

Sorry, no picture of the tucking, JG wasn't around and I needed both hands.

Whisk egg and brush over loaf. [You can use your fingers if you don't have a pastry brush.] Use a sharp knife to slash three evenly-spaced 1/2"deep slits along the loaf. Spray with water and gently pull onto the peel [or cookie sheet]. Working quickly, open the oven, slide the parchment onto the stone [or 2nd cookie sheet] with a quick backward jerk [and maybe a push with your fingers, but be careful, it's hot!], and close the door. Set your timer for 18 minutes.

After 5 minutes of baking, open the door and spray water onto the bread as evenly as possible. Repeat after another 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, pull the bread from the oven and check the bread. You want an internal temp of 200F+ [or a hollow sound when tapped, but that's subjective] and the bottom should be quite dark but not black at all. Return to the oven for a few more minutes if necessary. [Mine usually takes 22 minutes, but ovens vary and you don't want to go too far.]

Whole Grain Bagels

It was just a little chilly in the apartment the other night, so after dinner I decided it was time to turn on the oven.... for bagels.

I've never made them before. Peter Reinhart has a recipe floating around foodblogs that I'm sure is fantastic, but it's a multi-day process and I wanted something to bake posthaste... I found a home-style recipe that used a one-hour rise and decided if that could still produce an identifiable bagel, I could tweak it for whole grains and flavor.They're excellent. They came out of the oven much softer than a standard bagel, and the one I cut while it was still warm gave off a lot of steam and was still so moist inside I wondered if my slap-dash recipe was off, or if you're just supposed to wait until they cool [and finish cooking from the inside] before you cut them.
The next morning, sliced and toasted, I experienced bagel nirvana. The outside was perfectly crisp, the toasted cut side nice and crunchy, and the interior was so soft. I'm not going to say they're authentic, but they were pretty darn tasty... and who wants to boil and bake before breakfast? I think I'll keep my nighttime recipe and enjoy my ready-to-go bagels the morning after.

Recipe: Whole Grain Bagels
These take about 2 hours start to finish, mostly hands-off. I used 1/2 sourdough starter for extra flavor but the rise came from the instant yeast... you can approximate the flavor by adding a tablespoon of Marmite [or Vegemite] or replacing the water with a lager beer like Budwiser, Narragansett [for the Yanks], or Lone Star [for the Texans].

For the bagels:
1/2 cup rye flour
1 1/2 -2 cups white whole wheat flour, more as needed
2 Tbs oil
1 Tbs sorghum [or barley malt, or molasses]
3/4 cup warm water or lager [~110F]
1 Tbs + 2tsp instant yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt

For the boiling water:
2 Tbs baking soda
1 Tbs sorghum [or selected substitution]
2 tsp salt

For baking glaze:
1 egg white
1 Tbs water
optional black sesame, white sesame, poppy, caraway, or celery seeds; onion or pepper flakes; garlic or kosher salt; or any combination thereof

Combine all bagel ingredients except salt in the bowl of a standing mixer. Stir by hand ~1 minue until all flour is hydrated. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 17 minutes for gluten formation.

Add salt, attach dough hook, and mix on medium low (#4) for 7 minutes. After 5 minutes, check the dough and if it doesn't pull away from the sides, add additional flour, 2 Tbs at a time, until it does. The dough will be tacky, but it shouldn't be sticky [or: it'll be clingy, but it should stick to itself more than you... is that better?].

Coat a bowl with non-stick spray. Transfer dough to bowl, spray top lightly, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place until doubled ~1 hour.

Turn on your oven to 500F. Punch dough down [I love punching dough] and scrape onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 8 equal pieces (~3 oz each), and roll into balls. Poke an index finger through the middle of each ball, wiggle it until you can get your other index finger in from the other side, and tumble your fingers one over the other to stretch the hole evenly* to a 2" diameter [the ones pictured were a bit bigger]. Cover with a light towel or plastic wrap and let rest 20 minutes.

While formed bagels are resting, find the widest pot you own** and fill with ~2" of water. Add soda and sweetener and bring to a boil. [Turn down to a simmer if it gets there well before the bagels are finished resting, then turn back up when they're ready to go.] Place a parchment-covered or oiled baking sheet as close as possible.

Gently drop 3-4 bagels into the water. [Don't go much over half full, they'll expand quite a bit.] Boil on one side for 2 minutes, then use a spatula to flip them over and boil another 2 minutes. Transfer to the baking sheet and repeat with remaining bagels. [They will look soggy and sad, but that's perfectly okay.]

Once all the bagels have been boiled, brush with egg wash and coat with desired toppings. Transfer to the oven and bake 10-12 minutes or until nicely golden brown, rotating the pan after 5 minutes.

Transfer to a cooling rack and cool completely before slicing and toasting.


* Try it, it'll make sense as you go.
** I imagine you could use a roasting pan over two burners, but I haven't tried it.

Summer Squash Pizza

Here's a summer bonus for your pizza topping pleasure:
Just slice it thin and don't let it out of the oven until the edges curls and brown spots appear. It may look dried out, but that just concentrated flavor.

[Also pictured and discussed previously: whole-wheat dough, simmered tomato sauce, carmelized onions, fresh moz, and scallions]

Confetti Pizza... The Magic of Color

Color can heighten your enjoyment of a dish. There's a reason lots of restaurants finish off dishes with a sprig or sprinkle of vividly green parsley. Now, this pizza would have been just as tasty if we'd only had red tomatoes, yellowish cheese and a deeply colored meat, but the contrast of what we did use was so fantastic that we honestly marveled at every bite. Our pleasure went beyond the anticipated flavor from visual cues ["That looks like it's going to taste good"] and beyond the (excellent) flavor of the pizza itself. It was pleasing on a purely aesthetic level, and that is immensely satisfying for the mind as well as the belly.
The components aren't revolutionary: a crust* topped with garlicky olive oil, tomatoes, arugula, mozzarella, Canadian bacon, and a few more tomatoes [maybe arugula is revolutionary for some, but I'd seen it done before I attempted it myself the first time].... but it was the colors that wowed us. The tomatoes happened to be orange and yellow greenhouse tomatoes JG picked up on sale. I'd thrown the pulp of the tomatoes into the garlic oil, which happened to turn the crust a nice golden color. The dark green arugula happened to be getting unruly in the garden. We happened to pick up ultra white fresh moz instead of a yellowish fontina. We happened to choose a bright pink Canadian bacon from the freezer instead of a maroon prosciutto... and the cumulative effect happened to be stunning.
I'm a fan of serendipity, but after this experience I'm re-committing myself to making whatever humble food I make as visually stimulating as possible.


*I used the water to flour ratios from my normal crust recipe, but I also happened to be totally out of wheat flour and ap flour, so I used bread flour and oat flour in a roughly 60/40 split.

Whole Grain Burger Buns

...or dinner rolls.
I've been putting off my grand treatise on bread for a while now. Bread isn't hard to do once you get the hang of it -- little kids made bread back in the day -- but it can be a little daunting when things don't come out quite right and you don't know what you're doing wrong. [On the plus side, croutons are best made from dense-ish bread and dried bread crumbs don't care who their parents were.]

This is a good recipe to start off with and perfect for grilling weather... and since the highlight of the burger is usually the meat/bean patty/portabella inside and not the shape or texture of the bun surrounding it, many bread sins can be overlooked. The dough is slightly sweet and tender; usually the more ingredients, the more forgiving the dough is. Once you pare it down [flour water yeast and salt], everything you do matters a lot more... but that's another post.

As a bonus, forming the balls give you 8 (or 16) times more dough shaping practice than forming a single loaf.

This recipe looks rather long, but it contains a lot of troubleshooting asides. You may want to paste the text into an editor and cut out the info you don't need. I'll also try to troubleshoot in the comments section if you need help.
(This is a home-ground pork burger with fennel pollen. If anyone has their own meat grinder and wants the recipe, I'll happily supply it.)

Recipe: Whole Grain Burger Buns
You can omit the oat flour and increase either the whole-wheat or AP flour by 1/2 cup. You can use all AP flour. You can use all whole-wheat flour, but they won't rise quite as well. You can use whole milk and water in equal parts. You can use only water. Any changes will change the final texture and flavor a bit, but they'll all work as long as you keep the liquid:flour ratio the same. You can use "active dry" yeast, but you should add it to the liquids and wait 10 minutes or so for it to foam before adding the dry ingredients. You can also easily halve the recipe and whisk one egg up and divide it roughly in two, saving part for the egg wash.

Makes 8 good-sized buns or 16 dinner rolls
Takes 2.5 to 3 hours, mostly inactive.

1 cup [skim] milk
1/3 cup [olive] oil
2 eggs [divided use]
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 package "rapid-rise" or "highly active" dry yeast [~2 tsp]
1/2 cup oat flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/4 to 1 3/4 cups AP flour
1 tsp salt

Additional flour for dusting
Sesame seeds for garnish

Combine milk, oil, 1 egg and sugar in a standing mixer bowl and stir briefly to break up the egg dissolve the sugar a bit. Add oat flour, wheat flour, and 1 1/4 cup AP flour, stirring after each addition until the flours are loosely incorporated (no dry patches remain, but it's a pretty shaggy mess). Cover with a pot lid or plastic wrap and let rest 17 minutes. [This is when the gluten forms, you can go over 17, but don't go under.]

Uncover and sprinkle salt over dough. Using the dough hook on the mixer, knead bread 7 minutes on the medium low [10-12 by hand on a floured surface]. After 4 minutes, the dough should be wrapped around the hook so that it only touches the bowl in the middle. If it's still sticking on the sides, add more AP flour a couple spoonfuls at a time -- knead ~30 seconds after each addition -- until it does. [Make a note of how much you used, though it can vary every time!] Recover dough with lid or plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warmish spot until doubled in size 45 -60 minutes.

Scrape dough onto a well floured countertop and pat into a rough circle of even height. Divide dough in quarters, then each quarter in half. Let them sit a minute so the top of the bread is just a tiny bit dry. To form the ball, pick it up and stretch the top, pulling it underneath on all sides and pinching it together at the bottom. Place each bun on a parchment-lined or lightly oiled cookie sheet.

If your ball tears along the top, you're pulling too hard. If you're super gentle with the next one and it still tears, your dough may be too dry. If it's too sticky to form and won't come off your fingers, your bread's too soft and you should dust it with a little extra flour. None of these things will ruin your bun; they'll just make them less pretty.



Dust the tops with additional flour then drape with plastic wrap near the oven but not directly in the path of its vent. Turn on the oven to 400F. The oven will be up to temp by the time the buns are fully risen, ~20-30 minutes.

Give your buns a poke. If they spring back or quickly fill in the indentation, they're not quite ready. If they completely deflate, they've over-risen. [All is not lost. Press them flat, give them another dusting of flour and pull them back into buns to rise again. They may be a little more dense. Compensate by making the best burger ever.]

Once your buns are ready, whisk the remaining egg with 1 Tbs water and brush over the tops with a pastry brush or smear on with your fingers. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Slide the cookie sheet into the oven and turn temp down to 350F. Bake until top develops a nice sheen ~25 minutes. Allow to cool 30 minutes before slicing.

Whole Grain Banana Cake

K, a Brazilian national, was making muqueca, a Brazilian fish stew that JG and I had had at a little restaurant in Cambridge, just around the corner from where K & A used to live. By happy coincidence, it was also the first day of Carnivale, the perfect day to have a Brazilian get together. I had planned on making some banana bread to take over as a hostess gift and had measured out the wet and dry ingredients separately so all I'd have to do was mix it together and bake it after I got off work.

Then I got a message from A, asking if I could bring dessert. Sure!... but what do you pair with fish stew? Avocado mousse seemed too fussy... and I already had my bread measured out to bake... but bananas aren't native to South America... but they've been grown there for a couple centuries now... and I don't know how much time I'll have after work. An extra cup of sugar turned my quick bread into a cake. I'd already put coconut milk [an essential Brazilian cooking liquid] in my wet ingredients, but what else could I add? Avocados are usually mashed with sugar and eaten more like a fruit south of the equator, but I wanted something a little more savory and I wanted a drizzle... Brazil nuts and cashews [cajus] are both native so I stopped at the store on my way home and bought both, but the cashew had a more assertive flavor that I thought would work with the bananas.
All in all, I was pretty pleased by my thrown together dessert.

Recipe: Whole-Grain Banana Cake
You can reduce the sugar to 1/2 cup for banana bread. I omitted most of the butter usually called for since I was using coconut milk, but I did brown some for flavor. I usually put ginger and cardamom in my banana bread, but cinnamon is a native Brazilian spice. I could have candied the nuts, which would have been nice, but I just toasted and salted them... you could also just buy them either way.

3-4 bananas, the older the better

1 1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar [or 1 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar]
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon

2 Tbs butter
1 small can coconut milk [5.5 ounces]
1 Tbs cider vinegar [you could use caju juice if you can find it]
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

1 ripe avocado
3/4 cup Salvadoran Crema [or creme fraiche, or sour cream plus a little sugar]
1/4 cup cashews, toasted or candied, crushed

Set oven to 350F. Place bananas on a foil-lined baking sheet and let sit in the oven while it comes up to heat, then continue roasting until their skins blacken and split. [Or roast them in a toaster oven 350F for 15 minutes or so]. Meanwhile, measure out the dried ingredients into a large bowl. I even put the sugar with the flours to mix it like a quick bread. Oil and flour a 8.5x5 bread pan or 9-in. circular pan.

Once the bananas are done, pull them out and set aside to cool a bit. In a small skillet, brown the butter [don't burn!] and pour into a medium-sized bowl or large glass measuring cup. Add bananas, sans skins, and any accumulated juices. Mash or puree [I use an immersion blender, but leave one banana out to mash for chunks] then whisk in coconut milk, vanilla, and cider vinegar.

Once the oven is ready [mine is slow] whisk eggs into wet mixture. Form a well (pit) in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour/scrape in the wet mix. Gently fold ingredients together until very few streaks remain. Pour/scrape into prepared pan and bake ~75min. for bread pan or ~45 min. for cake pan or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean. Move to a cooling rack (or a cold stove burner) and let cool 10 minutes before unmolding and 1-2 hours before cutting. Garnish with avocado cream and chopped cashews.

Avocado cream
Puree avocado with 1/2 cup cream. Mixture will thicken to a whipped cream. I stirred in another 1/4 cup to thin it out a bit but it still didn't drizzle. You could also just puree the avocado with 1/4 cup powdered sugar and make it more like a frosting.

Pizza Dough

By request.

Good pizza dough takes a while. There's no help for that. Think of it as a flat bread with toppings. You may think it's all about the cheese and sauce, but the crust--the flat bread--is a crucial flavor component. Bread takes a while. If it didn't, there wouldn't be an entire grocery store section devoted to mass produced (and often additive-laden) varieties for our convenience. It's not always expedient, but it isn't hard to make. Small children were once able to do this. It just takes a little practice, like tying your shoes. Once you get the hang of it, you don't even need a recipe.

That said, this is a recipe for the quickest way I know to make a decent pizza crust... and I've tried a lot of ways. It takes about 2 hours [most of it inactive for you while the yeast is working] and you can start this recipe days before or the morning of and keep it in the fridge, just bring it out a couple hours before you turn the oven on. The flavor comes from yeast development and fermentation, which is why great pizza places have dough going at all times. If you have a sourdough starter, it'll add a lot more flavor and you can still add the instant yeast if you want it to go faster.

If you think you might make pizza or any other bread more than once a year, this is well worth the ~$35 investment for a 14”x16” baking stone. [You can also throw the stone on the grill when it’s too hot to turn on the oven – May to October in central Texas.] A pizza peel is great, but a cookie sheet will work as well. Stretching the dough on parchment paper and removing it once the initial crust has formed (~7 minutes of baking) is significantly easier than flouring the bottom and praying it doesn’t stick when you try to slide it in.
Recipe: Pizza Dough

Makes 1 large, 2 medium or 4 individual pizzas
It's important to heat your stone completely; make sure you heat the oven to 450 degrees for thirty minutes before you start baking.

1 cup water, preferably distilled, warm but not hot (no more than 110-115 degrees)
2 1/2 cups flour, divided use, plus more for shaping crust
[use no more than 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour or more than 1/4 cup of rye flour]
1 teaspoon honey, sugar, or agave nectar
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (1 envelope) or 1 cup starter
olive oil (or cooking spray) for oiling bowl, plus extra for brushing dough
parchment paper
Toppings (below)

1. Turn oven on to 200 degrees for ten minutes, then turn off. You can do this while you’re measuring out things, just be sure to set a timer because you don’t want the oven to actually reach 200 degrees... yeast dies around 117.
2. Mix 2 cups flour, water, sweetner, and table salt in bowl of stand mixer fitted with dough hook on low speed until no patches of dry flour remain, 3 to 4 minutes, occasionally scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Turn off mixer and let dough rest at least 17 minutes for gluten formation.
3. Sprinkle yeast and sugar over dough. Knead on medium speed for 5 minutes until long strands form from the edges of the bowl to the hook (this is your gluten). Add remaining ½ cup flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until dough is glossy, smooth, and pulls away from sides of bowl, another 2-3 minutes. (Dough may only cling to the hook while mixer is on. When mixer is off, dough may fall back to sides.)
4. Coat a large bowl or stock pot with ~1 Tbs of oil, dump in dough and drizzle another ~1 Tbs oil over top. Flip dough over once so it is well coated with oil; cover tightly with plastic wrap. Place in warm oven until doubled in volume and large bubbles have formed, 40 minutes.
5. Remove dough from oven and turn oven on to 450 degrees. Turn out the dough onto a well-floured piece of parchment paper, dust top with flour and stretch it out to the desired size (or you can roll it out with a rolling pin. I won’t tell.). This will be a sticky dough, handle it gently. For a thinner crust, let it rest 10 minutes, then stretch it out further. If it tears, stop, squish it back together, let it rest, and avoid that area while stretching out the rest. [I also roll the edges over for a thin crust, just for something to hold onto in the final product.]
6. Brush entire crust with olive oil. This is also a moisture barrier to keep the sauce from sogging your dough. Add toppings. Drape with plastic wrap until oven is ready.
7. Slide pizza (with parchment) onto stone, pulling the peel back with a quick jerk. Bake 7 minutes or until crust is set, then insert the peel between crust and parchment and lift the crust enough to pull the parchment out. Continue baking until cheese is completely melted and starting to bubble and brown, another ~5-7 minutes.
Pizza Toppings
JG and I use some combination of the following ingredients; whatever’s on hand.

Pizza Sauce [with variations]:

2-3 cloves of garlic, minced or sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
3/4 lb tomatoes
or 3/4 lb tomatillos, husked and chopped,
or one 14 oz can of dices tomatoes or a can of Rotel with chiles,
or a jar of salsa: green, red, chipotle, whatever
salt & pepper to taste
red pepper flakes, oregano, basil, anchovy fillet or a squirt of anchovy paste (all optional)

Saute garlic until golden, add tomatoes or variants and mash with spoon or spatula, add salt and spices. Simmer until almost all of the liquid evaporates.

Or…
Mince garlic fine, sautee in 2 tablespoons olive oil, and use this oil on the dough before topping, sauceless.

Cheese:

Fresh mozzarella and parmesan are our primary cheeses (~4:1) and then maybe gruyere, or cheddar, or crumbles of fresh goat, or dollops of gooey bleu; no more than a cup total… super cheesy pizza is a waste of other good ingredients… but if you want that, use fontina. (Italian is better than Swiss) and a little parm.

Veggies:

The more the merrier!

Caramelized White or Red Onion. During ~20 minutes before kneading dough, thinly slice, toss with olive oil in a skillet over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, until rest of pizza is ready.
Roasted Cherry Tomatoes or Bell Pepper Strips. During ~20 minutes before kneading dough, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, throw in a toaster oven at 275 degrees until rest of pizza is ready.
Shake pan occasionally.
Fresh Tomatoes, Onions, or Shallots. Slice them very thin so they’ll cook quickly.
Arugula. Peppery; scatter a couple handfuls on raw. Definitely top with cheese to hold it on.
Spinach. Good raw, better wilted. The leaves glop together, so you have to pull them apart and kind of smear them across the pizza.
Sun Dried Tomatoes. Chop into strips or dice. Use the oil in place of regular oil on the crust.
Mushrooms. We usually saute, but you can just slice them thin. Thyme and mushrooms belong together.
Olives. Kalmata or nicoise meld with the other flavors best, but assertive green olives have their place.
Basil. Whole leaves work if baked with toppings, scatter raw chopped basil after it comes out of the oven.

Meats:

Usually on top of the cheese so it gets a little crispy. Use sparingly if at all.

Prociutto. Our favorite. Keep a hunk in the freezer (a charcuterie no-no) and shave off maybe .5 ounce at a time.
Ham or Canadian Bacon. Slice thin, or dice and pan fry.
Pork, Lamb, or Chicken Sausage. Pre-cook and sliced thin or crumbled.
Pepperoni or Spanish (hard) Chorizo. Spicy. Slice thin.

Whole-Wheat Pita

Before I move on to pastries, I have to share these whole-wheat pita from dinner last night. They're tasty and easy, and perfect for fresh hummus. The first batch ballooned perfectly, making great pockets...


...but there was one at the back of the oven that formed a bubble before it puffed up completely and somehow maintained the bubble even as the rest of the pita expanded, such that the bubble on top of the balloon was closer to the top of the oven [the hottest part of the oven] and got a little dark...

It was really... special. JG said it was "mam-tastic."

Recipe: Whole-Wheat Pita Bread

makes 8 6-inch rounds

1 1/4 cups warm water (not hot... less than 115F)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast (or sourdough starter, but that's another post)
1 tablespoon honey (or agave nectar, sugar... sweet food for the yeast)
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cups whole-wheat flour, plus more for dusting (fine ground, I've discovered prefer Whole Foods store brand)
1 1/2 teaspoon salt (kosher or table is fine, just not chunky fleur de sel, it'll tear the gluten)

In a standing mixer, combine water, yeast, and sweetener. Let sit 5 minutes, then add oil and flour. Stir with a spatula until combined in a shaggy ball. Cover with plastic wrap or pot lid. Let rest at least 17 minutes, then add the salt and proceed with kneading. [Kneading can be done by hand.]

Using a dough hook, knead on medium speed (#3) for 7 minutes. After 4 minutes or so, the dough should wrap around hook and only stick to the center of the bowl. Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl, cover, and let rest 20 minutes.

Turn out onto a well-floured pastry cloth or counter. Divide in half, then each piece in half again until you have 8 equal pieces. Roll into balls, pinching any seams together, then flatten the balls and roll out into 6 inch rounds, dusting lightly with flour if they stick either to the surface or the pin. Transfer onto parchment covered cookie sheets, 4 per sheet, dust again with flour, and cover loosely with plastic wrap to rise. Meanwhile, turn on the oven to 500 degrees. If you have a rectangular baking stone, put it on an upper middle rack. Once the oven comes up to temp, give it another 10 minutes or so for the racks and stone to get thoroughly hot ~45 minutes. By this time your pita should look puffy, but not huge.

Slide the first batch onto the stone or rack, pulling out the cookie sheet but leaving the parchment behind. Bake five minutes (the pita will take 2-3 to balloon), then pull pitas and parchment out with tongs. Stack pitas (if they haven't burst in the oven, they'll deflate reluctantly) and give the oven a few minutes to warm up again before repeating with the second sheet.

Eat warm or cool completely before storing in an airtight container.