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Waffle Pizza

Okay, more like pizza and waffles.

I have been doing some experimental baking this weekend. I’ll give you the short rundown.

First, I made a pizza dough, close to the usual recipe I use, but also close to Alton Brown’s recipe. Basically a ratio of 1.25 cups of water to 3.25 cups of flour, dry yeast, 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1.25 teaspoons of salt.

However, I have been fooling around with both methods and ingredients. In this dough, I used whole wheat for about 15% of the flour. And I gave it some time to sit and ferment as a “sponge” before I mixed in any of the salt and most of the flour.

I made enough dough to make 2 pizzas and 4 large rolls. The results were great! The crust was fluffier than I wanted, but that’s because the dough was hard to stretch. However, it held ingredients well.

The rolls were flavorful and crusty (not as crusty as I would like, but better than usual color and texture of the crust). The girls seemed to like them despite the whole wheat. Of course, it was only 15%.

The pizza was still good the 2nd day after being reheated in a 350 degree oven for about 8 minutes (until it got crisp on the bottom). This crust resisted getting soggy in the fridge. That’s great!

It emboldened me to try something else I’ve wanted to do for a while: yeast-raised waffles. They have to be prepared overnight, so before bed I prepared the recipe.

You’re supposed to let it sit at room temperature, and I did that, but I chose one of the cooler rooms in the house.

In the morning, it had bubbled up and smelled pleasantly yeasty. I mixed in the eggs and added vanilla (I can’t make a recipe without changing it) and poured the liquid batter into my Belgian waffle iron. (Flip ‘n Fluff)

Whaddaya know? The waffles were light, crispy and buttery. It’s a big recipe, so I made the remaining waffles and froze them for later toaster-warming.

Today, I’m trying Peter Reinhart’s pizza dough from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. You make this well in advance and keep it in the fridge for a day to 3 days. I thought I had learned patience, but bread baking (to my satisfaction) seems to require even more patience than I expected.

It’s funny, but there is a lot of beginner info out there that will tell you how to successfully bake a loaf of bread. It’s easy to do — that first loaf — with just a little instruction. But if you’re looking for something specific in your bread, like I am, it can take years… in my case over a decade, to feel like you’re getting close.

That’s partly because it has taken me a while to get my hands on the right advice. Bread baking is more about process than formula.

Still, if you have never baked bread before, I recommend you try. That first loaf is both easy and rewarding, and there is good instruction available.

Posted by James at December 31, 2006 5:57 PM
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