oraklet

lovely thread! mine dates some 20 years back. steaks. hot saucepan (clled "look"). in a hurry. steaks finished. grab saucepan by handle to tranfer steaks to plates. mid way between stove and dinnertable: pain. had grabbed too close to pan. had to finish movement so as not to drop steaks. for years after i had mirror image of "look" branded in hand, slave-wise. kinda "kool". christian

oh... i may not have expressed myself clearly. is pastry flour and pasta flour the same thing in english? well, what i mean is that i would add 1/6 of the kind of flour used by most of us for pasta: durum semolina. i believe that it is actually richer in protein, but perhaps i'm wrong there. anyway, it adds texture to the dough, especially if you don't work it several times. if you don't, by the way, use a very high grade flour for pasta, it will be sticky when cooked. christian

hi matthew what do you actually mean when you say that you don't want your pizza to be "bready"? most italians would state that a pizza is really a sort of bread... but perhaps you just don't want it to be like a french/baguette-like bread, and then you might try this procedure: use 5/6 parts 0-0 flour and 1/6 of pasta flour. salt. very little yeast (or admittedly even better: sourdough, but it can be rather much of a trouble keeping it alive during vacations). enough water to make the dough sticky. let rest in a cool place for at least 8 hours (THE REAL TASTE OF WHEAT DEVELOPS ONLY THEN!). when doubbled (at least), turn gently upon floured working table. pour flour on top of it (sticky, remember?). work, from the centre out, into a thin disc, leaving a 1" border (? sorry obout my lack of english...) untouched. fill sparingly, and don't forget to sprinkle with olive oil. bake in HOT oven (and a pizza stone works very fine, really). all this makes for a dough that virtually "explodes", with lots of big thready holes inside it. just like the best italian breads. i'm not a real gourmet cook, but at least my pizzas are praised by everyone around, and i think they are the best to be had in denmark! but: as mentioned on another thread, no two ovens are alike, so you will almost certainly not succeed the first time. it took me some 5 years to learn! good luck christian

Oh, I forgot to mention that bread should be baked at temperatures somewhere between pie and pizza - the smaller the bread, the higher the temperature. Also, that you can add some rye flour or not-refined wheat flour for a more rustical taste, which will be the way most italian bread tasted 100 years ago. And hot-air ovens are good for making that crusty bite! Anyway, no two ovens are alike, so you will have to make some experiments, before you really succeed.

Pizza stones are a nice way to get around the drawbacks of modern ovens. The very old ones don't seem to need one. I've been baking bread and pizzas for years at my parents-in-law's cabin in Sweden in a very old oven that heats the whole place at the same time - and the result is excellent, almost every time. Now, apart from the stone, key factors in making a pizza are: Make your own dough, with very little yeast, from 5/6 pizza flour and 1/6 pasta flour plus water and salt. Make sure it is rather sticky, let it grow slowly (at least 8 hours) in a bowl in a cool place. It should be covered with a damp cloth and a lid. When it has increased to double size, pour a thin layer of pasta flour on your working table, turn the dough carefully (in one piece) onto the flour, cover it with more flour and work it into the desired shape, starting from the center. The oven should be HOT! Apart from this, of course it should not be covered with too much filling. If you prefer to make small breads, cut the dough into smaller pieces. If you're not careful, some of the air will be squeezed out, and you will then have to let them rest for a few hours. Covered again, of course. This is as close to the classical method of bread-baking as you can get in our modern world. There is one drawback, though: Once you have mastered it, you will HATE most other kinds of bread, just like my family do, and you will have to bake and bake and bake and....