Yesterday I made a big batch of pizza dough for dinner last night. This was a new recipe that was given to me by a family member. I built this recipe in my kitchen aid mixer which is the best place to make a dough/ easiest.
      2lbs of Pizza Dough
         2 packets (1/4 ounce each) active dry yeast

         2 tablespoons sugar

         1/4 cup olive oil, plus more for bowl and brushing

         2 teaspoons coarse salt

         4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for work surface

         1 1/2 cups of warm water

 

     First I took my kitchen aid mixing bowl and poured the yeast and water into it. The dry yeast will desolve into the warm water which will creat a foam to rise to the top of the water. Let the water and yeast sit for 5 minutes before adding any other ingredients.

     Add the sugar to the mixure and mix this together by hand with a whisk.

     Add the flour to the bowl and place the bowl in the kitchen aid mixer with the hook attachment.

     Let this mix on a medium speed. Add the salt to the mixture at this time. Slightly add the olive oil ( a little at a time) around the edges of the bowl allowing the olive oil to get incorportated before adding more olive oil. The dough will start to pull away from the bowl and create a bowl around the hook.

      Take the dough off of the hook and place the dough back into the dough. Brush the top of the dough with alittle more olive oil and plastic wrap the top of the bowl. Allow the dough to sit for 1 hour/ until it has doubled in size

      Once it has doubled take the dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured surface and divid it to your preferred size, I divided mine into thirds, so you may knead the dough.

       Once the dough is kneaded and has a round shape, you can either let it rest longer under plastic to allow it to raise some more or you may roll it out to make your pizza.

     

I found this article online where it talks about recipes as being a set of formulas. Not every recipes that is written is based on formulas but the few that they talk about sounds awesome to me.

 

"The fundamental ingredients of cooking are: flour, water, butter, milk, eggs. Their proportions produce variations of bread, pasta, dumplings, crêpes, cookies or cakes. The difference between a crêpe and a cake is half the flour.

There are two ways to measure ingredients, by volume and by weight. Ratios are based on weight, regardless of units (ounces or grams).

The 1-2-3 cookie dough = 1 part sugar : 2 parts butter : 3 parts flour

This is the basic cookie dough and variations are infinite. There are 3 ways to change:
Flavour: add citrus zest, nuts, cinnamon, chocolate, peanut butter
Replace an ingredient: white sugar to brown, molasses, honey
Proportions: more butter will be more rich and chewy; more sugar will be crisper

Here are the Dough Ratios:

Bread = 5 parts flour : 3 parts water (+yeast, +salt)
Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts egg
Pie Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts fat : 1 part water
Biscuit = 3 parts flour : 1 part fat : 2 parts liquid
Pâte à Choux = 2 parts water : 1 part butter : 1 part flour : 2 parts egg"

 

For example: Pie Dough= 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat (lard), 1 part water

       3 cups flour, 2 cups fat, 1 part water or 3 bickets flour, 2 buckets fat, 1 bucket water

Simple keep all of the measuring units the same and keep the ratio amount the same

Bread Hitz

If you want to learn about different styles of bread and pastries then check out these youtube videos by Chef Ciril Hitz. Chef Hitz is a professional pastry instructor at Johnson & Wales which allows him to share his passion to students of all ages.

Thanks to his website http://breadhitz.com/index.html, he is able to reach out to more people outside of his classroom walls and even shows people how to watch his how to videos online. http://www.youtube.com/user/breadhitz

So check out his how to videos and start making you own artisan bread

Almond Coffee Cake

During my birthday weekend in October I went to Gracie's in Providence, Rhode Island. Gracie's is a local favorite for so many people because they make anyone a star with their local and season food choices and high-class ingredients in their drinks.

             "With an eye toward sourcing the freshest ingredients, we change our menu seasonally to reflect the flavors found at each time of the year. And, we look to our local farms and purveyors, and even our own roof-top garden, to reap the best each season has to offer."-Gracie's

Luckily for me I was with a very good friend of mine who used to work there so we were able to get extra special treatment like talking to Chef Matthew Varga and having multiple staff members delivering our courses to us.From our wine pairing to our VIP course and our specialty birthday dessert Gracie's is a Foodie's paradise. http://graciesprovidence.com/menus

Persimmon

After my graduation from Johnson and Wales I was able to have an amazing dinner date with an amazing girl at one of the best restaurants in Rhode Island.

"Chef Champe Speidel is honored to be a three-time semifinalist for a James Beard Foundation Award, Best Chef: Northeast, and we’re thrilled that Persimmon has been recognized by the Foundation as a semifinalist for Outstanding Service."

Chef Speidel, his wife, and his wonderful team do an amazing job at making any night the best night ever. If you ever want to turn a normal weekday or spice up the weekend then take a drive to Bristol, Rhode Island and visit Persimmons.

http://www.persimmonbristol.com/

Hello

Hi my name is Kyle. I am a culinary student with a passion to play with and eat food.During my free time I am going to restaurants throughout the North East but mainly within Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Something I enjoy to do that does not mainly include food would be; going to school to become a teacher in the culinary field, running long distance races, and hanging out with the best dog ever, Olivia an Australian Cattle Dog.