Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Daring Baking! Pizza!

What a great challenge! Again, its one of those things where you think you've done it before and its a bit boring, but follow the recipe and learn something new.

Thanks so much to Rosa, Sher and Glen for this great challenge. This is dedicated to the lovely Sher, its so sad that she isn't here baking along with us all.

The challenge seems like a very familiar one but there were a couple of things I hadn't tried with pizza. The dough was fermented at low temperature overnight. This results in a much more elastic dough, that is much more flexible for shaping.

The second thing which was required was that we toss the pizza. As a Brit, this made me chuckle, thinking of Gordon Ramsay talking about the daring bakers being a bunch of tossers. Hee hee!

I did what was required, and had a go at the tossing, it was hard to get a photo of it in the air, I hope this will suffice. It was actually really good, I came out with the thinnest crust I've ever got. This technique requires lots and lots of practice, I don't know if I'll ever get really good at it, but I definitely approve of the super thin crust, it was totally delicious and my favorite way to eat pizza.

It evoked memories of my trip to Verona, the lakes, and Belluno in Italy a few years ago with my now husband. A wonderful trip, with the best pizza I've ever tasted.

My first three pizzas were topped with delicious kabochi squash, which had been sauteed in browned sage butter, spinach, mushrooms and smoked jack cheese. Mmmm.

The second time I made it, I took the frozen dough from the freezer, defrosted it overnight and then tossed it and topped with mozarella, tomato sauce, mushrooms and roasted peppers. Tasty but not as exciting as the first. The rounder pizza is my husband's, he obviously likes a thicker crust, and the second is mine, much thinner.

Please see rosa's blog for a lovely pizza and the recipe. I highly recommend that anyone tries this 2 day method.

12 comments:

Alexa said...

The squash pizza sounds amazing. I'll have to try it next time I make pizza.

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

Great tossing! Your pizza looks delicious! Very well done!

Cheers,

Rosa

Shelly Hattan said...

Well done!

Anonymous said...

Great attempt at tossing the pizza. Your pizzas look wonderful. Great job.

creampuff said...

Nice pizza toss ... and I love the combos you chose for topping!

Anonymous said...

your squash pizza sounds particularly good! i might try that this weekend as i fancy another go at mastering that tossing technique - my photos are very similar to yours!

Dewi said...

I actually had a lot of fun doing the tossing, I know it was hard to take the photo, I used tripod, I ended up with lots of flour on my shutter button. Your pizza sounds really unique, squash and sage are perfect combination. Well done on this month challenge.
Cheers,
elra

TeaLady said...

Pizza tossing. Great Job. And squash, great job.

Anonymous said...

Great job tossing! I'm too chicken to try... I just hang the dough from my fists letting gravity do the work. The dough sounds great though!

silverrock said...

Ooooh! What lovely looking pizzas! Looks like you had a ton of fun tossing the dough :) Way to go on this month's DB challenge!

Anonymous said...

Your pizza looks really good & great job on your tossing.

adozeneggs said...

Oh the kabocha squash one sounds delicious. I can't believe Gordon Ramsay dissed the Daring Bakers. I love him on that show Kitchen Nightmares.