January
Ideally I'll be checking in here once a month, giving an update and telling you about my experience with the new things I made or what I did.
Now as I said I wasn't sure what I was going to bake this month, just had a list of what I had planned for the year. Of course the magic of the internet I found this blueberry donut recipe. I somewhat learned from the pizza fiasco to make sure I had everything before planning to bake. I thought for donuts (like for bagels or pretzels) I would make the dough and have to form the circles either with my hands or cookie cutters. Luckily this recipe called for a donut pan, who knew that existed?! Also a donut pan makes things a little easier. I bought a single pan with six slots of semi-normal sized donuts instead of the twelve mini, this was my first experiment so I didn't want to go all out if this wasn't going to be a success. After all this I might go buy another one.
So what did I do this month?
Well in some honesty, I wasn't sure what I was going to cook/bake at all. Well maybe the pizza, but that was more going to be what we ate on New Years, and it was more my boyfriends idea, but I think I'll cheat this month and do better next month.
Lets discuss this pizza.
We had been looking for a good dough recipe, and nothing seemed right. Then through the power of the internet, he found this, and he believed it would be what we wanted. If you watch the video two things are what kept us from making this New Years. The first being all of the measurements are done on a scale/done by weight and we did not have one, the second being the poolish which needs to be made the day before (yikes!) and since I had been on vacation, no poolish was getting made.
So this waited until about half way through January to make and ensure we had everything this video asked for: canned tomatoes, basil, 00 flour, cheese and some fresh yeast. We were hoping the previous bad dough was just because of the possibly expired yeast, although after making this maybe the dough just didn't have enough time to sit and rise or interact with the yeast.
We made three pizzas that night (they were relatively small). The first bake was a challenge, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't know make the pizza on the pizza stone/baking sheet unless you have those fancy pizza paddle because it won't come off the counter easy. I knew this from experience, someone was afraid it would cook the pizza while we were putting on the toppings.
The first also showed us we got what we wanted, good dough, just slightly undercooked in the middle.
So what happens when you undercook? The second pizza...burnt.
We all learn from our mistakes right? Look away too long, and the pizza is toast.
The third was perfection, well dough wise it was.
Not to say anything bad, it was a good pizza, it just needed some flavor, some garlic for the sauce or a more flavorful cheese. No disrespect to Neapolitan pizzas, it just needed something more.
My last piece of comment about this experience before we move on is, be careful if you are using a pizza stone, they may not be good for short periods of broiling.
Kind of like the pizza, these donuts were done in three to four batches. Each with a little learning on the way, because again this was my first time, and I was just going with it.
First batch, I was a little unsure with how to get the dough from the bowl to the bag (as the recipe suggest piping it in) although spooning it in the pan would work too, just not as well in my opinion. So the bag was a bit messy ladling it in. I also wasn't sure how much to fill the pans, it said don't over fill and are they like muffins or cupcakes where you fill it three quarters of the way and it rises to fill the rest in the oven? Not exactly, but hey it was my first try.
Once they were done I had to figure out how to get them out of the tin, there was not as much space as there is in a muffin tin, I was afraid they were going to break, and some did. So did I under fill the tins? Was there too much blueberry in the ones that broke? Were they under cooked? Did slightly flouring the blueberries hurt? Should I have floured them more?
In all honesty I don't know. The second batch also had some problems, slightly the same, slightly different. The rest of the batches got an extra minute of baking or so, just in case. I mean what I was seeing was what is in the picture above (thinking my donut looks a little flat and a little light) not realizing that the round part was on the bottom. Duh, Carrie they aren't going to be the same shape all the way through because they are baked, the are going to have more of a top and bottom.
As I said the issues were similar but different this time taking them out, the donuts with a lot of blueberries were easy and some of the less full ones broke. So that somewhat settled it, fill the pan more, and using a knife instead of a spoon taking them out helped too.
Last batch worked out well, might have been a little over filled, but hey I was learning. Still learning, even when it came to glazing these guys. It said either dunk them (which can be messy) or drizzle it over the top. Dunking worked out a lot better. Although the glaze didn't want to stick to some of them, or didn't stick as well. Could be they were over cooked or had a few more air pockets to them then the ones that had a good glaze consistency. For the most part they looked and tasted great, so I'd call this a success.
I did have some slight worries, after letting them sit out the next day they almost looked like they were going bad, should I have put them in the fridge or in an air tight container? I ate one, it was fine although a bit mushy. Thinking about it now, I'm sure most donut shops make and/or glaze their donuts fresh daily so maybe leaving them out was not the right practice.
I brought a few to work, and everyone liked them, my boss even said he liked it better spongy and less cakey. So hey, maybe it worked out after all.
With these working out well, you might end up seeing more donuts in the future being made. Keep an eye out.
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