Wood Fired Breadsticks

One of the joys of summer in our household is lingering by our outdoor fireplace. One of the dreams I've had now for a while is to figure out how to put a wood burning oven in our backyard, but living in a rental house in the middle of the city makes that difficult, even potentially dangerous. Funny this is one of a few things that R fears more than I do!

Tonight, however, tonight! Tonight I saw possibilities of those worlds coming together. The coals of the fire looked just right, and I thought--if I push those over, I can fit a quarry tile or two in there (the tiles that line a shelf in our oven). I happened to have some pizza dough rising in the fridge (new recipe, more on that later this week).

We tried it out and made some quick breadsticks. They were delicious. We only preheated the tiles for about 5 minutes or so, probably another 30 minutes preheat might make it work for a pizza. We'll see if I give it a shot soon. The breadsticks got charred nicely and had some flavor you can only get from burning wood--a really wonderful way to end a day.

Pizza Dough Recipe

Warning...sometimes baking can turn your kitchen into a disaster zone. Like above.

This is Rachel...

I have rights to post on Sean's blog since he took over my Seattleats blog and turned it into this. It has become a justice issue, you are the masses in need and Sean is holding onto all the power (aka money, privilege etc) the the readers of this blog that Sean doesn't post recipes with this bread photos and descriptions.

Since Sean's greatest genius in our baking life has been his pizza...it is now time to share...

Pizza Dough

4 1/2 Cups high gluten flour (no whole wheat you health food nuts- this means white flour)

1 3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp yeast (instant yeast- the standard kind not uber quick rise just regular old store bought yeast) and yes if you are a consistent baker that is fairly small amount of yeast!

1/4 Cups Olive oil

1 3/4 Cups ice cold water

So stir together all the dry ingredients

and then, if you are lucky enough to own a nice mixer put on the dough hook and put in the dry ingredients and then the wet ones on medium for 5-7 minutes. Try to make sure that the dough doesn't slowly climb up the dough hook.

The dough should stick to the bottom and not the sides othe bowl.

THEN,

Cut into 4 pieces and let it sit in the fridge overnight...it will rise in the fridge nicely. If you want to freeze it- do it then.

So here is the uber trick...make sure you oven has been preheating forever at the highest possible temp (usually 550) with tiles or a pizza stone or even a baking sheet if that is all ya got inside of it.

So when you are ready to take it out of the fridge you take it out and roll it out- or moreover work it out slowly put the toppings on (some possibly need precooked) and then put it in the oven with flour on the bottom for like 7-10 minutes. Keep an eye on 'er.

Enjoy.

Source: This Recipe is derived from Peter Reinhart, The Bread Bakers Apprentice

Whole Wheat Bread

I've been working on some bread recipes recently, and found one I really like--Peter Reinhart's Recipe for Whole Wheat bread from Brother Juniper's Bread book. It is 2/3s white flour and 1/3 wheat flour so that's probably why!

Still, the flavor works great, and you feel a little better about yourself afterwards than if it was just purely white flour.

Found some locally grown tomatoes at the market today (ok, British Columbia, but still pretty local), and decided to go for them for some bruschetta. Combined with olive oil from Big John's PFC (more about that later) it was a great appetizer.