De Baking Psychopath

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have been baking but not really taking pictures and labwork has been happily productive so I've been a bit short on time to sit down and crank out the posts. But here are the pictures of the finished pizza using the No-Knead bread dough recipe I promised. After a few days in the fridge, the dough was so flavorful and chewy, and it smelled almost like we put beer in it! The last picture shows the beautiful bubble structure we got in the dough. Yum. It may be the best tasting pizza dough we've made at home EVER. Otherwise I've been baking some "healthy" things, although the ulterior motive is to get rid of some ingredients in the fridge/freezer. 1) Lemon Angel Food Cake Cupcakes. I am too lazy and cheap to go out to buy an angel food cake pan, but I wanted to get rid of the egg whites in my freezer from all those times I made chocolate chip cookies that called for one yolk. Finding this recipe that used muffin...

You know, one of those days. Where even though you have "more important" things to do (i.e. an application for research funding due by midnight the next day), baking seems infinitely more urgent, and important to your mental health. And you realize you have some pantry cleaning to do. On Sunday, I really wanted a chocolate chip cookie. And while flipping through a few cookie books and finding more chocolate chip cookie variations of interest, I was reminded that 1) I haven't in recent memory given either AB's CCC or the NYTimes CCC a try, and 2) I have some bread flour I really need to start getting rid of. Alton Brown's The Chewy: up close and personal The premise of Alton Brown's The Chewy cookie (and the NYTimes-featured cookie, although I didn't make that recipe this time) is that since bread flour has a higher percentage of protein (gluten) in the flour, the moisture you give it (in the form of water from melted butter) and the time you let it rest t...

Tonight's dinner was inspired by Culinary in the Desert (see My Favorite Blogs on the right hand bar). Joe (the blogger) and Jeff have pizza every Friday, and their whole wheat pizza dough is the preferred substrate upon which to create culinary delights. We tried their dough recipe (found here ) and found it to be a sturdy thin crust but still retained a good chew without being dry. Michael, who is sometimes not a fan of whole wheat in things not classically made with it (such as pizza), said that it turned out better than he thought although he would like more rise and wants to play with the yeast and flour ratios. We used leftover vodka sauce that Michael had made for a dinner party he threw for some of his law school friends while I was in New Orleans , Italian sweet sausage bought from another Joe (the Trader), defrosted frozen spinach that had its water squeezed out, and a sprinkling of shredded mozzarella cheese. Figure 1. Right out of the oven Figure 2. Right before ent...