26 November 2020

 Cream Cheese Crêpe Filling

4oz softened cream cheese

4T powdered sugar

1T milk

1/4tsp vanilla bean paste

Enough for 6-8 larger crêpes, maybe more with other fillings. This was most excellent combined with lemon curd or cranberry curd. Sugar can be cut a bit, especially if not combining with a tart curd.

24 March 2019

Gordon Ramsey Lemon Curd Pizza

Lemon Curd (about a cup or so?)
Zest of one lemon
Juice of half the lemon
Segments of other half the lemon

Mix together and spread on pizza dough.
Sprinkle crust with powdered sugar.
Bake.
Dollop creme fraiche over baked pizza and sprinkle with basil leaves.

Most of the powdered sugar blew off in the wind. And our curd is quite tart, so maybe the lemon juice isn't needed? I really like the segmented lemon bits, though.

2 March 2019

Spicy Chewy Brownies (Cook's Illustrated, modified)

1oz Dutch-process cocoa (Hershey's Special Dark)
1 1/2tsp instant espresso powder (optional)
1/2c +2T boiling water (150g)
2oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine (Ghirardelli)
4T unsalted butter, melted
1/2c +2T vegetable oil (125g grapeseed)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
2tsp vanilla extract (paste)
17 1/2oz sugar (500g)
8 3/4oz all-purpose flour (250g)
3/4 tsp salt
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, cut into 1/2" pieces
         (2.7 oz Taza Guajillo Chili, 2.7 oz Taza Cacao Puro)

Heat oven to 350*F with rack in lowest position. Line a 9x13 pan with foil, leaving some overhang. Spray with cooking spray.

Whisk together cocoa, espresso powder, and boiling water. Stir in unsweetened chocolate and stir til melted. Whisk in butter and oil (mixture may look curdled). Whisk in eggs, yolks, and vanilla. Whisk in sugar. Fold in flour and salt. Fold in chocolate pieces.

Scrape batter into pan and bake until toothpick inserted halfway between edges and center comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 30 minutes. Cool on wire rack 1 1/2 hours. Remove from pan and cool another hour. Cut into squares and serve. Store in airtight container at room temp up to 4 days.

For chewing texture, brownies must be completely cool before cutting. If baking dish is glass, cool 10 minutes in pan, then remove from dish to finish cooling.

21 July 2018

Mushroom-Green Veg Pizza for 2

Master Pizza Dough, 2 balls

1 pint sliced mushrooms, sauteed
1c blanched peas (or blanched broccoli florets or shaved asparagus, whatever your heart desires)
1/4tsp red pepper flakes

Fontina-Parmesan Cream (Milk Street, modified, halved)

90g cold heavy cream
2-2.5oz Fontina, grated (It frequently come in 5oz packages)
10-15g Parmesan, grated
1T fresh minced rosemary (optional, use 1tsp if dried)
1/4tsp white pepper

Whip cream to stiff peaks. Fold in cheeses and spices. Keeps in fridge 3-4 days.


Top each stretched dough disk with a quarter of the Fontina-Parmesan Cream, half the shrooms, green veg, and red pepper flakes, and bake.

Master Pizza Dough

No-knead pizza dough (Jim Lahey, modified)

575g flour** (58%)*
20g salt (2%)
400g water (40%)
1g (1/4tsp) active dry yeast (we use a scant 1/4tsp of instant yeast)

Mix up, cover, and put it down for an 18 or so hour nap (at 72*F). The dough should more than double. Turn out onto a generously floured surface, divide into 6 pieces (about 165g each, makes 10"-12" pizzas). Working with one ball at a time, fold each side towards the center. Shape into a round and place (if not using immediately) into an oiled quart bag or 16oz deli container. Store in the fridge 3-4 days or freeze.
Bake at 550*F on a well-preheated stone or steel on upper-middle rack for 7-9 minutes (add a couple minutes if your oven only goes to 500*F) or use a pizza oven according to manufacturer's instructions. Jim Lahey's method uses the broiler; that's another option.

*Please note, these percentages are NOT baker's percentages. I frequently want to make a certain number of dough balls, and this is the easiest way for me to figure out the amounts of the ingredients needed to end up with a particular weight.


**We've used both all purpose and bread flour; they both work well. Recently, we got some Italian Antimo Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour. Boy, what a difference! This is the most stretchable dough I've ever worked with. It even stretches well when cool. We're down to 150g balls for a 12" pizza. The balls are initially very sticky, but my normal 1-2T of flour still works for 2-3 balls.