Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Daring Bakers Challenge -- PIZZA!

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This month's Daring Baker's Challenge was a recipe for “Pizza Napoletana” from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I've made a fair amount of homemade pizza in my life, but never used the overnight slow rise in the fridge trick -- and I was excited to try!!

The part of the challenge I wasn't excited about was a secondary requirement . . . we were encouraged to toss the dough up into the air, and get photo or video evidence of our tossing!! Although I was more nervous about the tossing aspect, that proved quite easy. Photographing with a digital camera with a significant delay, however, was more tricky! We had many outtakes:
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But Dan was persistent and patient, and finally managed a shot with the dough mid-air:
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(I think the look of restrained horror on my face is my favorite part!)

Although I have completed vegan DB challenges in the past, I did use real cheese (mozzarella, smoked provolone, and parmesan) for my pizzas this month. (Well, I just like cheese! I grew up in Wisconsin, after all.) To up the nutritional profile, I used half whole-wheat bread flour in the dough, and a wide assortment of my favorite pizza veggies!!

Artichoke, olive, and sun-dried tomato pizza:
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Mushroom, onion, and garlic pizza:
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Both pizzas, waiting to be devoured:
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Verdict? Challenge Pizza was a success! I love the recipe, and it may be my go-to pizza recipe in the future -- the crust was thin and tender (opposed to my thick, dense, and bready crusts of the past,) and the recipe was a cinch to prepare. It could have been an overwhelming success, however, if I had invested in a pizza stone! I'm going to wait until I have a larger oven, to accomodate a large, rectangular stone, but boy, I can't wait to enjoy perfectly crisp, pizzeria-style pizza!!

11 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Excellent work on the pizzas; and your tossing skills are impressive!!

J said...

I love that picture of you with the dough! So fun! I would probably use real cheese on my pizzas if I could - but alas I am allergic to dairy. I had spent 20+ years of my life stuffy and then discovered that dairy was the culprit. And I don't really like the faux cheeses so we tend to try to make pizzas that don't require cheese or "cheese-like substances".

Those pizzas look great! I would have never thought to put sun-dried tomatoes on pizza.

Bex said...

you look like a dough tossing pro! My dough was too soft to get that kind of height. Great work.

Tina said...

I love the shot of you flipping the dough! So fun!

aTxVegn said...

Great toss!

Alexa said...

It came out great! I can't imagine how hard it must be to have someone take pictures of the tossing part. Great Job!

funwithyourfood said...

WOAH
that "in action" shot is amazing... there's no other word but amazing haha

teddy

Anonymous said...

Those pizzas are beautiful! And artichokes and mushrooms are some of my favorite veggies/pizza toppings too :o)

Courtney

Lynn said...

Your pizzas look amazing. I love the toss picture. Fun post. Well done.

www.lynnsahotdish.com

Anonymous said...

Yeah for pizza & great tossing photos! I also loved this challenge! You know, because I love pizza!

Steffi said...

I enjoyed reading about this challenge quite a lot. I've been thinking about joining the daring bakers for some time... because I'm a horrible baker :)