There was a whole lot of baking going on in my kitchen last night! Usually when I bake there is chocolate involved – but this time, it was all about the dough.
First up was this deep dish pizza recipe from Eat, Live, Run. I bookmarked it last week and had been thinking about it ever since. I followed the recipe for the crust pretty closely, but subbed whole wheat pastry flour for half of the flour. After letting the dough rise for an hour, I punched it down and pressed it into a greased 9” cake pan, and put the toppings on.
Toppings
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~3 oz tomato paste
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1/2 ball fresh mozzarella, sliced (I love Narragansett Creamery and it’s local)
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~2oz thinly sliced prosciutto, torn into strips
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5 thin slices of tomato
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dried oregano & crushed red pepper
Then, I baked it for 20 minutes. The recipe suggested preheating the oven to 500 degrees, then turning the temperature down to 425 degrees once the pizza is in the oven.
The only changes I plan to make next time are to brush the top of the crust lightly with olive oil and to only turn the oven down to 450 degrees. I like my crust extra crispy!
While the pizza dough was rising, I prepped some dough for homemade pretzel rolls. I’ve never made a pretzel, let alone a pretzel roll before, but last week when I saw Elina from Healthy and Sane blog about her results with Alton Brown’s recipe I knew that needed to change. I followed Alton’s recipe, but instead of forming pretzels, I split the dough into 11 3.4 oz rolls and cooked them using according to his directions.
I think these came out pretty good for a first try, but next time I’ll be sure to roll my dough balls tighter before I drop them into the boiling water and I’ll make them a bit larger. I can’t believe they actually taste like “real” pretzels!
Dinner
After a great evening baking, we enjoyed the deep dish pizza for dinner with some Caesar salad. I had two slices of the pizza, it was filling!
I also sampled half of a pretzel roll, for quality control purposes. I guess that was dessert?
The pretzel rolls came out great! So glad I inspired you to make them… aren’t they amazing? I froze a bunch and love having one for breakfast with some almond butter and fruit once in a while.
They ARE amazing! I put some in the freezer too and I will definitely make some more when these run out. Now that I’ve got the process down, I can focus on making them all round next time.
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