Oil and garlic pizza sounds boring at first glance, but I really enjoy a good garlic bread with dinner, and this isn't much different. I started out with a focaccia dough I had made previously and left in the freezer.
FOCACCIA CRUST
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon dried Italian herbs (oregano, basil, garlic)
Combine the yeast, water, and sugar. Set aside for five minutes. In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour and salt. Add the yeast, water, oil, and herbs and combine (preferable in a mixer with a dough-hook attachment), until the mixture forms a ball. Continue kneading until dough becomes smooth and elastic. Place dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover. Let stand in a warm place for an hour. After rising, punch the dough down and roll into desired shape. Brush the top with a little olive oil, if desired, and let rise for another hour. Top as desired and bake at 400º for 15-20 minutes.
With a frozen crust on hand for the garlic and olive oil pizza and the store-bought pizza crust dough in a tube for the pinwheels, there really wasn't a whole lot I needed to do in advance. I also had frozen pizza sauce (left over from the two weeks ago). I decided to make a pie.
Last week, we canceled pizza night to go Up North to celebrate our sixteenth wedding anniversary. With no pizza preps to do that Thursday, I made a cherry pie at my husband's request. It had great flavor, but the goo never thickened, and the floor matt of my car is now cherry scented and probably very sticky. We ended up re-baking the pie, and that may have helped, but I am convinced that the reason it wasn't runny when served was because all of the liquid was still in my car. I decided to have a redo.
Last week's cherry pie consisted of 8 cups of whole black cherries (or whatever kind Cub carries this time of year - there is some debate on what, exactly, they are). I decided to reduce the amount of cherries just a little bit. It was partially a conscious decision and partially because Cub only had bags of cherries that were just over two pounds instead of the two and a half I had last week, and I was too lazy to take some out of another bag and add it to the one I had picked up. After pitting and de-stemming, it turned out to be 1.88 pounds or five cups.
I also decided to increase the cornstarch. I had made a blueberry pie earlier in the summer, and it called for 7 tablespoons of cornstarch. I had thought that was excessive, did some research, and decided it wasn't totally crazy, but I still wasn't comfortable putting that much in. For that pie, I had settled on 6 tablespoons, and the pie was fine. Last week's cherry used 2 tablespoons for cornstarch. After my successful blueberry, I thought that was a bit low, but I did it anyway. I was sure that was part of the problem. I increased the cornstarch to 5 tablespoons.
Another complaint I had about the first pie was that I had sprinkled some sugar over the top of the lattice, hoping to give it a little sparkle once it was baked, but the sugar just completely melted away, leaving no evidence that it had been there in the first place. I decided to try sugar in the raw or turbinado sugar, which has larger granules. Granted it is brown, so I wasn't sure how that would affect my sparkles, but I gave it a try.
I would love to test each of these adjustments independently and taste the pies side by side, but since I am unemployed and broke, I will have to settle for an imperfect test.
BLACK CHERRY PIE
2 pie crusts
5 cups pitted black cherries (2¼ pounds before pitting and de-stemming)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
5 tablespoons cornstarch
1½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon roasted Saigon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons brandy based orange liqueur (I used Harlequin)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon grated orange zest (about half of an orange worth)
2 tablespoons cold butter (divided)
1 teaspoon turbinado sugar
Preheat oven to 450º.
Place the pitted cherries in a large bowl. Mix the lemon juice and cornstarch in a small bowl. Add some of the juice from the cherries, if it is too thick. Add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add this mixture to the cherries and toss gently to combine thoroughly. Let rest for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, line a 9½ inch pie plate with one of the crusts. Prick all over with a fork. Cut the second crust into strips to prepare for lattice top.
Add the liqueur, the almond extract, and the zest to the cherries and toss gently again. Pour the cherry mixture into the pie plate and dot with 1½ tablespoons of the butter. Take the center strip of the second pie crust dough and lay it across the center of the filled pie. Lay half of the remaining strips along either side of this first strip in the same direction. Take the smallest of the remaining strips and weave it horizontally through the first set of dough strips. Repeat until all of the second pie dough has been woven into a lattice top.
Melt the remaining ½ tablespoon of butter and brush over the top crust. Sprinkle turbinado sugar over the butter.
Bake in 450º oven for ten minutes (I suggested putting a cookie sheet, jelly roll pan, or a stretch of tin foil on the rack below to catch any potential spill-over). Reduce temperature to 350º and bake for another 55-60 minutes or until top crust is brown and filling is boiling.
Remove from oven and let rest for at least ten minutes before serving.
The original recipe used orange juice instead of orange liqueur. I wondered if maybe the alcohol had somehow prevented the pie liquids from thickening. The instructions had me mixing the orange and lemon juices with the cornstarch, mixing it with everything except the almond extract and the zest, and only adding those after the mixture had sat for fifteen minutes. I consulted my food scientist friend, Karen, and asked her if alcohol prohibits the thickening effects of the cornstarch in a recipe. She explained that the cornstarch isn't soluble in alcohol, so that may have been the problem. If the cornstarch doesn't fully dissolve, it won't thicken as well.
The next step was to add the sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Once that was combined, I added that to the cherries. The instructions said to mix well with the cherries. I found this difficult to do without damaging the cherries, so I dug in and used my hands. That way, I could gently lift and toss the cherries without smashing or chopping them in the process.
I found the same technique helpful with adding the zest, too. Again, stirring the cherries up by hand prevented damage to the fruit, but I could also get in there and separate the clumps of zest, distributing it more evenly throughout the cherries.
After everything for the filling was combined, I laid the bottom crust in the pie plate and poked it all over with a fork. I wasn't sure why this needed to be done, but Martha Stewart on http://www.marthastewart.com/ said that it was to prevent the crust from puffing up and shrinking while cooking. I poured in the cherry mixture, dotted it with butter, and wove the additional crust over the top. I brushed the lattice with the remaining ½ tablespoon of butter and sprinkled my turbinado sugar over the top.
Interestingly enough, even though I had used fewer cherries in this pie than the last one, this pie overflowed quite a bit more than the first one. I was glad for the oven liner that Pam gave me when it was time to clean it out.
It seemed that there was a lot more action going on with this pie when I was ready to take it out of the oven than with the other one. I wasn't sure if maybe one of the other problems with the first one was just that I didn't cook it long enough.
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| First Pie |
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| Second Pie |
With the pie cooling, I started rolling out the focaccia dough for the olive oil and garlic pizza. It hadn't been thawing quickly enough for me, so a couple hours into it, I threw the baggie of dough into a bowl of warm water and let it sit there. When I took it out, I realized that there was a hole in the bag. Water had leaked inside, and my dough was a little soggy. It also hadn't seemed to change in size or shape since it had thawed, so I suspected that when I had originally made the dough, I may have forgotten to put in yeast. Either that or it had been in my freezer so long (it was labeled September 2009) that the yeast had died.
I rolled it out as large as I could and told Pam that it wasn't really going to be a focaccia so much as it was going to be a flatbread... and I mean really flat. The original recipe called for olive oil, garlic, and salt, but my herb garden had been going for a couple of weeks, and I couldn't resist adding some fresh herbs. I grabbed some basil, oregano, and rosemary from my deck.
OLIVE OIL AND GARLIC PIZZA
1 recipe focaccia dough (see above)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons of mixed fresh herbs (basil, oregano, rosemary)
Preheat oven (and pizza stone, if using) to 500º. Roll dough out into a 12 inch circle. Brush with the olive oil. Sprinkle the herbs on top. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until crust is starting to brown.
My flatbread was built and ready to go into the oven, so I started working on the pinwheels. The dough that I bought at Cub (generic Cub brand) seemed really squishy, and I wondered if it was going to hold up. I stretched it out as large as I could, which was about 10 inches by 13 inches. I spread about half a cup of sauce over the entire rectangle and topped it with pepperoni. I decided that the little bit of pepperoni I had wasn't enough, so I added some moose kielbasa that was laying around in the deli drawer of the fridge. I thought about adding additional toppings, like blue cheese, mushrooms, or onions, but looking at the squishy dough and thinking about how it was going to roll, I thought it would be better (easier) to leave those items off, because it may make it more difficult to roll.
PIZZA PINWHEELS
1 can refrigerated pizza dough (or perhaps a stiffer, home-made dough)
½ cup pizza sauce (see recipe from 6/7/12)
2 ounces pepperoni, chopped
2 ounces kielbasa, chopped
8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
Preheat oven to 350º. Roll and stretch dough out to a large rectangle, about 10" x 13". Spread sauce over dough, leaving a ½ border around the edges. Sprinkle with pepperoni and kielbasa. Cover with the mozzarella. Starting at one 13" end, roll the dough and toppings up into one long roll. Slice into eight pieces. Arrange slices on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 20 minutes or until crust around the outside edge is firm and slightly browned and cheese is melted.
It was difficult to roll anyway. The inside layers wanted to stretch and extrude itself out either end. It looked like a giant (unbaked) crescent roll. I kept unrolling it and trying again to get the layers to all line up, but Jeff and Pam assured me it was fine to have some of the interior sticking out at either end. Pam said, if nothing else, we could make adjustments to it once we had it sliced into pinwheels. I started to slice it with the chef's knife I had used to chop the pepperoni, but it smashed the roll flat and didn't cut through the dough very well. I switched to a serrated knife, and that was much easier. There was still a little smashing, but nothing that couldn't be reshaped once we laid the slices flat on the baking sheet.
The inside dough was staring to dissolve, and the filling was squirting out the tops of the rolls. I think if I were going to try and make this again, I would try a different, more sturdy, crust, but for now, there was no turning back.
Jennifer had said that they would be over around 7-ish, because Gracie had softball practice until then about a block away. I waited until 7:05 to put the pizzas in the oven and start on our drinks.
CRANBERRY MINT MARTINI
6 fresh mint leaves
2 measures cranberry Moonshine (or cranberry vodka)
1 measure cranberry juice blend
½ measure Harlequin (or brandy based orange liqueur)
Muddle the mint leaves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice and remaining ingredients. Shake well and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh mint leaf.
I got a text from her shortly thereafter, informing me that the practice was actually going to run until 7:30pm. I let her know that her drink wouldn't wait for her. She and Jonah showed up about ten minutes later without Grace. She said it was close enough for Grace to walk by herself.
The original drink recipe called for half a measure of grenadine, but we found it to be a little too sweet for our tastes. It may have been different had we used unsweetened cranberry juice, but we had cranberry juice cocktail. On our second batch, we replaced the grenadine with Harlequin, and it was wonderful. It was still a little sweet, but it was balanced. The mint was just barely there. It was more of a feeling than an actual flavor. Once a sip was swallowed, there was just this refreshing cleanness on the tongue. These would be extremely dangerous on a hot day.
It was a gorgeous day, and Pam and Jeff and I had already set ourselves and the flatbread pizza up outside on the deck. It was just over 75º, and there was a slight breeze. It was perfect for eating outside.
The flatbread was crispy and flavorful. The garlic had softened and turned a nutty sweet flavor in the valleys of olive oil left in the crust. The herbs joined together to give it a fresh, homey flavor. It was a wonderful appetizer.
The pinwheels timer went off just as we were finishing our flatbread. Jennifer and I went in to check on it. It didn't look done. The crust was still a pasty white, and the interiors of the swirls still looked a little gooey. We put it back in for another 5 minutes while we refreshed our beverages. Again, it still looked a little white. We tapped the outside crust. It was definitely cooked on the outside.
The pie turned out to be a big hit, too. I didn't get the beautiful sparkles I was anticipating. There were a few slightly sparkly pieces of sugar on the top, but nothing dazzling. I did some reading on this subject too (guess I should have done that before-hand), and found suggestions like an egg or milk wash. I think that would have at least added a little shine to the crust itself as proven by our previous month of calzones.
The bottom crust stuck a bit to the pie plate. I did a little internet research on the subject, and the most common answer I found was to brush the crust with some egg white before adding the filling. Another suggestion was to prebake the crust somewhat before filling it.
The flavor was great, though. There was just a hint of the cinnamon. The cherries were sweet but not overly so. There was a refreshing lemony orange undercurrent and a flash of warmth from the almond extract. Jeff's only complaint was that the cherries had a slightly different texture than the original pie. In the original pie, they were still a bit firm, and each cherry was an individual. In this pie, they were a little softer, and some of them melded into the next cherry. I don't think I can duplicate the texture of the first pie, since it was cooked, drained, and cooked again.
Maybe I will have to make another one next week....
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