Another good recipe/refrence
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
My Favorite whole wheat bread recipe
This is the recipe that John and I used to make the pizza. Its actually a bread recipe. We made two changes. We used half whole wheat and half white flour. Why? We liked the taste and texture the best. I love whole wheat, but a 100% whole wheat pizza crust is very dense. Since we knew we would be crossing Pennsylvania with a rising dough in the back seat we used 1 Teaspoon yeast as an insurance policy. It was low enough for excellent flavor, but reduced the second rise to a bit more that an hour...just in time for Saturday evening, Dad's birthday weekend feast.
This dough is unlike anything I had every seen before...it almost like a muffin batter. I have read that older bread recipes used a lot more water than we do now. The Romans used rakes to mix their dough! (reference pending). There a variety of benefits to the long rise/high hydration. I think that they are explained in the Peter Reinhart lecture for Ted. I could go on and on, but I realize no everyone wants to get all technical/historical just to bake a pizza....another time perhaps.
The quantities in the recipe make two thin pizzas, or one thick one.
Then we cooked the pizza shell for 12-16 minutes at 475, put the toppings on, and cooked until it looked right, about 5 more minutes. The jury is still out on if it is better to cook it this way, instead of putting all the toppings on at once. To many variables! I pre-cooked because I wanted to avoid a soggy crust. Novice pizza cooks know the pain and heartbreak of the dreaded soggy pizza. We are still experimenting on this!
This is Jim Laheys recipe for pizza. Its goes without saying, that it is also excellent.
Reducing yeast to improve flavor
There are many ways to Rome, many ways to create a lovely bread. Some bakers find that reducing yeast and increasing the rising time of the bread dough created a more delicate flavor.
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