PANE CASERECCIO - Rolled stuffed pizza

(Some pics in this portfolio - about 12 photo's down.)

I vary the filling every time I make this - today I spread the dough with Pateole, a mushroom pate, covered that with pesto and added chunks of Fry's polony and Linda McCartney sausages plus slices of fried field mushroom. I sprinkled the whole lot with some nutritional yeast.


The dough was made with bouillon powder, half a teaspoon of curry powder, a teaspoon of dried herbs and half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes, chopped small. All this was added along with the flour. Plus I added 25g oil (from the s-d-tomatoes) after the liquid went in.

Ingredients (Makes two):    

400g (or 2 mugs) strong white flour                                                         

1/2 tsp salt                                                                  

1 rounded dessertspoon fresh yeast

250ml (or 2/3rds of a mug) lukewarm water

Two dessertspoons olive oil (optional)

                                                                       

Filling:

2 medium tomatoes or 8 mushrooms or a combination of these, cut into chunks

1 or 2 chopped vegan sausage
Chunks of vegan cheese - Violife pizza cheese works well
2/3 dessertspoons nutritional yeast, sprinkled over the filling
Black pepper

Method:

1. Measure the water and stir in the fresh yeast. Place the flour and salt into a mixing bowl, pour in the yeast liquid, then add the olive oil if using.

2. Have a little water to hand to add if necessary, remember, it is better for your dough to be wetter (slack) rather than drier (tight). Begin to mix by stirring  the ingredients together with a knife, cutting through the dough as it forms. When it gets too stiff for the knife, use your hand to squeeze the mixture together. As it forms into a solid mass, keep turning it over and pressing it down to pick up the flour at the bottom of the bowl – but make sure it stays soft. Don’t be afraid to add more water to keep it soft! When all the flour has been mixed in, wipe the bowl around with the dough, turn it out onto the worktop and begin to knead.

3. Knead by flattening the dough out, folding it over and flattening it again. If the dough is too sticky, instead of putting extra flour on your worktop, place some in the bowl, put the dough back in and turn it round to coat it all over. That way you keep the flour under control and you won’t be tempted to add too much. Knead until the dough becomes smooth – and then stop before you get fed up!

4. Divide the dough into two pieces and form them into cob shapes. Then, using flour to stop the dough sticking, roll them both out into a rectangle, roughly 30cm by 20cm. Work with each one, alternately. Spread the mushrooms/tomatoes and sausage across the dough, leaving a border at the top and bottom, then sprinkle the nutritional yeast over the filling. Finish with black pepper.

5. Roll up the dough towards you, as if making a Swiss roll, bring it to rest on the seam and squeeze the dough gently around the filling. Push any filling that’s fallen out back inside, then tuck the ends over to stop the cheese leaking out.

6. Place on a prepared baking sheet and leave to prove until they’ve risen appreciably.

7. Bake at 200C, 400F or gas mark 6 for between 20-25 minutes. If they are beginning to colour too fast, cover with baking parchment or foil and move to the coolest part of the oven. To check they are done, look for some colour underneath.

Variations:

Curried onions and vegan cheese. Fry some onions with curry powder. Spread across the base then add the cheese on top.

Roasted peppers, mushrooms, courgettes, onions and vegan cheese.

(Note: This is a version of a recipe I first saw Antonio Carluccio demonstrate on TV more than a dozen years ago. )

BREADMAKING SESSIONS with the Taunton Association for the Homeless (TAH)

Wednesday 19th October 2016
2 students today, Becky again and her friend (whose name I've temporarily forgotten) made pizzas:

Pizza no. 1 for Becky

And pizza number 2.
When making the dough she added too much water, so she had to add a fair amount of flour to make it into a manageable dough - enough for two pizzas!

Becky's friend's pizza - nibbled a little bit.

She also made this fruit loaf in a frying pan.

Becky didn't make a fruit loaf, saying she didn't like sultanas. However, when she tasted the fruit loaf her friend had made - she really enjoyed it. 

Amusing clay oven (The Dragon!)

Sunday 22nd May 2016.
Here's a reminder of the Dragon oven for my wood-burning mate @CannyFradock. We'll be firing it up again on 24th June for a team building day - you know you have an open invitation, Terry!

Friday 30th March 2012.
Hard to believe I haven't visited this oven - or this post - for 7 months!

However, I was asked by the Halcon Primary School head to run a session with some of her students and also some from a visiting school, instead of my usual Family Learning session.

As I'm always happy to do some outdoor pizza-making I didn't have to be asked twice!

The first thing to notice is that the missing tooth has been replaced:

Just lit the fire

And away it goes

1 beaker flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/3rd beaker of lukewarm water and 1 teaspoon of fresh yeast for each pizza 

Rolling out the pizzas

More rolling out

Topping the pizzas

Fire on one side, pizza on the other. This one is perhaps a little close - but nobody minded!

Some of the finished pizzas. The baking parchment is trimmed before it goes in the oven, otherwise it just burns up and curls over the pizza.

We made 11 pizzas, cooked in just over 40 minutes - not bad for the first firing of the year! We had 9 children, one of the teachers made a pizza, and I made one as a demo, which went to the support team.

It was a lovely session, enjoyed by everyone, and, all-in-all, a good start to the Dragon pizza-making year!

Wednesday 24th August.
Lovely summer morning - but not too hot for firing up an oven!


I'd been in touch with Crannyfradock (from the Wood & Pizza Oven Forum), who'd indicated he'd love to come and work the oven whilst I looked after the breadmaking. As luck would have it he had a spare day off and legged it down from Newport to Taunton for the day.

I hadn't seen Terry since the Besthesda Baking weekend, back at the beginning of July, so it was fantastic to see him again. And to work with him was a real pleasure.  (I also had a couple of hardworking support workers with me looking after the making and shaping of the breads.)

This time I thought I'd introduce a variation on a theme, so we offered chocolate and banana bread as well as cheese and tomato pizzas. These caused a bit of a problem in that the kids generally made them chunkier than was good for the oven - it was difficult to oversee the kids so that they rolled the bread out thinly enough - so that the outside of the loaf was sometimes cooked before the middle. However, we didn't receive any complaints!

I've got a couple of pics which I'll upload soon.

It's a bit sad that the summer's baking is all behind us! But I'm a lot wiser now than I was at the beginning!

On a brighter note, I was able to make sure that Terry didn't leave Taunton without a couple of gallons of scrumpy to remember us by!

Wednesday 17th August.
Weather not so good today - started out fine, but around 11 am the rain came down. I was sort of alright in that there is a bit of roof overhanging the oven, so I was dry whilst standing up - but when I bent down to tend the oven my backside got a bit wet!

Not that I had a lot of time to think about that as the pizzas came thick and fast. I'm getting much more accomplished tending the oven - to the extent that we broke a couple of records today!

Record number one:
A pizza cooked in 40 (forty) seconds!

Record number two:
Between 45 and 50 pizzas in 2 hours and 32 minutes!

Whereas previously I've been averaging a pizza every 4 minutes, I've brought the average down to one about every 3 minutes.

This is possible because of the increased heat I've been able to maintain in the oven. I am now much more pro-active about keeping the fire going in the oven - and the copper tube has proved very useful on the odd occasion when the flames had died down. And I was also able to put two pizzas in the oven at once after I'd cleared away the coals at the beginning.

Every now and again, because of the increased organisation of the pizza-making groups (6 at a time, first come first served, book your place when you register), there was a gap in the proceedings and I was able to concentrate on building up the fire again. After these pauses I just cleared the glowing embers away to each side and put the next pizza in the middle. It was after one of these occasions that I cooked the 40 second pizza - great fun.

A house pizza...

...and a tree pizza. Both on their sides, sorry!

I'm also a bit quicker in recognising when it's time to switch the fire from one side to the other - which only takes seconds.

Towards the end of the session I began snipping off the surplus paper from round the pizza:

A puffed up pizza, which took less than a minute in the middle of the oven

The pizza is identified by the letter K - not everyone followed the rules and put a number on their pizzas, that's why I'm not able to be specific about how many we made.

As long as there's some baking paper under the pizza it slips off the peel nicely. Once the bottom is crisp it's fairly easy to slide the peel underneath to bring it back out. (Although I still had to call in the tenon saw to reach a couple of pizzas that had slid out of reach of the peel.)

Halfway through the morning we realised we were going to be short of wood. A quick foray to the local Asda (only 400 metres away) resulted in a donation of several broken pallets. This gave us more than enough wood - and loads for next week as well.

Only one more Wednesday left with the pizza oven, and I want to try and set a new record. If I could get 60 pizzas through in under 3 hours, I'd think the summer well spent!

I'd like to thank Andy and Shane for the wood-chopping, Steve for the Asda trip and the backroom staff of two Jennies, Nan and Bob (not all at the same time!) Thanks, guys!


Wednesday 3rd August.
There was supposed to be less pressure on us this week, since the Family Centre was organising a coach to the seaside - Burnham on Sea, to be exact - but it didn't turn out like that.


Once again we made half a dozen pizzas for the staff - and then the youngsters piled in to make theirs. By the time we called a halt to any more budding bakers at around 1.00 the identifying number on top of the pizzas had reached 41 - so, with the six we'd made previously, we'd still made 47.


This time I had some help with the oven - my friend Andy kept me well supplied with wood to keep the oven at optimum temperature. I only let the embers die down once - and they were soon brought back to life with a few puffs from the copper tube, which worked very well indeed!


This week I've got something else on the Wednesday, so we're leaving it until next week before we fire up again.

When we do we're going to have quite a crush - with the youngsters who went on the trip joining the ones who didn't go. So we're going to have groups of up to six (we can take 8 if several come as a family) with the last group starting at 12.30. Hopefully we can then get everyone through to finish at around 1.30.

(Best laid plans, etc!)


Wednesday 27th July.
First Fun Day of the summer holidays and it was a bright, clear warm - not too hot - morning when I got there early to light the fire. But I was too late, one of the volunteers, David, had already fired up around 8.30, which was perfect since it meant we could start baking at around 10.30!

I figured that between 10.30 and 1.00 we could bake the 30 or so pizzas I anticipated we'd be making, no problem. I took along 4 bags of flour, 2 kgs of cheese and 5 tubes of tomato puree (to make the passata).

However, starting baking about 10.30, we'd reached the 30 pizza mark by about 12.30 and there were still loads of youngsters wanting to make a pizza. Eventually one of the staff had to dash off to the local S/M to replenish supplies - we'd run out of everything, including baking parchment!

It was fantastic! Kids of all ages from toddlers (with a bit of help from mum or dad) up to about 12-13, all got their hands stuck in and made some dough. The shapes - well they were all sorts of shapes, some of them even circular! But they all thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

In the end, counting the pizzas I'd made for the staff for lunch, we made about 60 pizzas. It was hard work and pretty hectic - especially for my support workers who were supervising the making of the pizzas - but terrific fun.

Loads of recipes disappeared, so hopefully a few of the families will follow through and make some at home.

The large 'S' denotes staff - got these ready before the hordes arrived. Just as well we did, otherwise there would have been simply no time!. 

Starting to build up nicely 

One of the youngsters' pizzas - that's the number 2 on there.

Left this one in a fraction too long- the oven was at its hottest then.

This was the last one out - at about 2.15. It took about 2 minutes, the same as the first one nearly 4 hours earlier!

Some reflections:
Although it was all very enjoyable it was only later that I realised that I hadn't had much to do with the actual making of the pizzas - which is what I'd rather be doing, really. I had two helpers supervising the dough making - both called Jenny, coincidentally - and they worked incredibly hard in a small, rather airless room for most of the day.

I, on the other hand, was out in the sunshine playing (literally!) with fire! I haven't got quite into the routine yet of keeping the fire going on one side, chopping wood, sticking the pizzas in, monitoring them, turning round them when one side started to cool off (that's what I should have taken as my cue to move the fire over to the other side of the oven) then taking them out. But by the end of the summer I should be a whizz!

(I could really do with someone to do the oven duty and allow me to take over the making of the pizzas, but not sure this is going to happen.)

I had a couple of hairy moments:
Twice I let the flames die down and the wood I put on wouldn't catch for what seemed ages. I was putting smaller and smaller bits of kindling on and eventually some baking parchment - and still it wouldn't catch! And a couple of times I lost a pizza in the back of the oven when I'd pushed it with the peel instead of slipping it underneath. I was saved by a rusty old tenon saw, which just caught underneath the edge of the pizza. It's pretty dark at the back of the oven at times - I could do with a torch so I can see what I'm doing. Also I need a longer, straight peel - the one Dominos gave us has a kink in it which means I can't get it to the back of the oven.

Wednesday 1st June.
Another Fun Day at Halcon. They have these every Wednesday of every school holiday now, and I'm always invited along to run a breadmaking session. Normally, this is held in the local church hall, but, now that children from the local school (Halcon Primary School, where I run a weekly Family Learning session) have built this wonderful clay oven, we were going to use it for the first time.

The guy who built it (Frank Blaker, who has built several of these - all different - over the last few months), couldn't get to us until about 10.15, so the oven wasn't lit until about 10.30.

First firing - with intent!

Which meant that we couldn't start baking our pizzas until around 12 when the oven should be at full temperature. With around 20 kids wanting to make them for lunch, this was a problem.

We decided to make mini pizzas - each youngster making 2 using half a mug of flour.

Proving - and waiting for the oven to heat up.

The first pizzas to come out of our new oven!

Coming thick and fast, now!

4 more - on a peel donated by the local branch of Domino's.

This was a real learning curve for me. We didn't rake out the embers, as I'd expected, but just pushed them to one side. We started off baking them on oven trays, but eventually just put them on the floor of the oven - on baking parchment. In the beginning the paper burned away in between the pizzas, and it was a delicate job getting the peel underneath the pizzas to get them out of the oven.

Frank had to leave at about 12.30, so I was on my own. He told me we could place some wood on each side of the oven, to burn, to keep the temperature up. But I didn't carry this part of the operation out properly, as the oven began to cool and each batch was taking longer and longer.

We eventually finished up around 1.30, much later than planned. We'd managed to get 22 small batches through in about an hour and a half - but I'm sure I can do better with practice!

As I said earlier, the Fun Days will be happening every Wednesday through the holidays so I should get plenty of practice through the summer!

Wednesday 20th April.
Here's an oven that's just been built at a local community centre:

I'm hoping to be involved when it's fired up for the first time!

VEGAN BREADS - Index

[I'm still working on this post, putting in the links to all the breads is time-consuming. If there is no link attached to the bread you're interested in, simply put it in the search box, and you should be directed to the recipe.]

Index of vegan breads:

Apfel kuchen (German apple cake)

Bagels

Bara brith

Belgian buns

Bialys

Bread bowls (from these to trenchers)

Calzone (soda bread calzone) baked in a chiminea

Canapés

Carta da musica

Chelsea buns (undercover)

Chocolate and banana bread 

Chocolate and beetroot bread

Chocolate and cherry bread

Chocolate loaf

Chocolate twist

Christmas loaf

Ciabatta

Cloche method

Cornbread

Crackers – poppy and sesame seeds

Creole soda bread

Croissants

Danish pastries

Devonshire splits

Doughnuts

Dumplings

Farthing buns

Focaccia

Fougasse

Fougassette

Fruit braid

Fruit loaf

Garlic batons

Grissini

Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns

Hungarian chocolate bread

Iced buns

Jam tart

Lardy cake

Loaves

Marzipan and apple tartlets

Mushroom en croute

Naans

Pane casereccio

Pane cioccolato (Italian chocolate bread)

Pane frattau

Pannetonne

Parathas

Pasties

Peshwari naan

Petit pain au chocolat

Pierogis

Pies (Thai, ratatouille, apple)

Pikelets

Pirozkhis

Pittas

Pizza (2 red pizzas)

Pretzels

Quick breads

Reindeer droppings

Rolls

Schiacciatta con l’uva

Soda bread

Sourdough

Spelt loaf

Spicy fruit buns

Spicy fruit naan

Swedish tea ring

Tempura

Trenchers

Yum yums

ALL bread should be vegan - that is, made with flour, salt (which can be omitted), yeast and water. That's it!

That's Real Bread as defined by the Real Bread Campaign (RBC).

"Real Bread is that made without the use of processing aids or any other artificial additives."

"Additional ingredients are great as long as they are natural...and themselves contain no artificial additives."

I teach breadmaking - in a variety of settings and to all manner of groups - that's my job. Necessarily, this involves me in making bread that is not vegan. It's always vegetarian, however. Of course, all the breads that I make for my own consumption are vegan. 

Unfortunately, my wife is a confirmed omnivore - when I announced I was going to be a vegetarian, her response was, "Don't be so bloody silly!" :) "And what about our Sunday roast chicken? And Christmas - what about our turkey?" (This was in November, 2001.) 

I'm a man of peace and compromise, so for five weeks I was vegetarian during the week and had roast chicken on the Sunday. I had the turkey at Christmas and I have been a vegetarian ever since - becoming a vegan around 2004.

So, not all of this blog is vegan or vegetarian - but the point of this post is to steer my fellow vegans away from any recipes that aren't vegan.

In this post I want to emphasise and feature - and link to - all the breads I make that are vegan - the great majority.

I want to look at the different 'natural' ingredients that recipes often call for, that aren't vegan, and, either discount them altogether, or suggest alternatives:

Eggs. Eggs are completely unnecessary in bread - and there is no necessity  for any egg replacement. None! Ever!

As an aside, eggs (or egg replacements) are also unnecessary in:
Pancakes
Cakes
Pasta 
Pastry

Butter. Where ever you see this in a recipe, replace with a similar amount of olive oil. (I use Lidl's - or Aldi's - Extra Virgin Olive Oil which is cheap, and comes high in the Which? Magazine tests.) But as a general rule, you can use as much or as little as you choose.  Olive oil adds flavour and helps keep the bread fresh for longer. Other vegetable oils don't seem to add much to bread - with the exception of the sunflower oil in which dried tomatoes have been soaked. When this oil is added to a pizza dough, it makes a wonderful crust - crisp, a little like short-crust pastry!

Cheese. This is used mainly as a pizza topping, in breadmaking - and, as you'll see, there are so many toppings that can be used in its place. Not as a cheese replacement, but as flavoursome toppings in their own right. Otherwise, in cheese rolls for instance, vegan cheese or other tasty alternatives can be used.

Meats of all sorts. Not even in mincemeat! :) (Although in the US some still quaintly believe that this Christmas-associated ingredient should contain meat! Ugh!) Not necessary in any shape or form.

VEGAN PIZZA My best yet!

Choice of two toppings

Saturday is pizza day in our house - and today, I think I excelled myself.

I wanted a variety of toppings, so I covered half of the pizza with a rich tomato sauce and the other half with three layers: First I spread it with Pateole mushroom spread, then Meridian pesto and finally topped it with a layer of hummus.

I then scattered mushrooms, tomatoes, roasted red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes and a few pieces of vegan cheese (Violife). I neglected to add a sprinkle each of nutritional yeast and dried oregano, but, no matter, the pizza was absolutely gorgeous.

I have to say that, of the two toppings, the mushroom pate/pesto and hummus combination just edged it for flavour. I've used these three ingredients in different pairings before, with very good results, but the three together are absolutely amazing!

OUTDOOR COOKING ON THE CHIMINEA - 2014

Today is the 6th time this year I've had the chiminea in action. Here are a few of the pics I have taken along the way:

Since I only cook outdoors on sunny days, some liquid refreshment always seems to be called for. This is how I begin my cooking - with a glass of my homemade (Munton's) stout.

MAKING PIZZAS AT A KIDS CLUB

There was a request on Mumsnet for advice about making pizzas with a kids club.

Since I make bread with kids all the time, I responded with some tips - which I thought might be handy for anyone else in that situation. So here's my reply:

That's exactly what I'll be doing tomorrow morning - and it's what I did last year at this children's centre.

Only we've got just 90 minutes instead of two hours! [smile]

Some tips:
Plain old cheese and tomato topping is fine;
Use fresh yeast if you can get it - Sainsbugs will sell it to you for 60p for 200g (at the bakery counter). The bread rises faster, I find, than when using dried yeast;
Use a dessertspoon of yeast (teaspoon if using dried). (Both will dissolve quickly in the lukewarm water - fresh quicker than dried.) The more yeast you use, the quicker the bread will rise.
Place the rolled out pizzas on some baking parchment before adding topping;
Nick off a piece of dough to form an identifying initial or number. If you look carefully at the pizzas on my blog you'll see an initial on each of them;
Accept as much help as you can get - many hands make light work and all that;
Don't forget to allow for clearing up time afterwards;
Have some scissors to snip a piece of pizza off for the kids to sample - easier than a p/cutter.
Don't forget bags to take the rest home! 

Please don't stress about it - you'll have a great time, and so will the kids! I'm never sure who gets more out of these sessions, me or the kids!

Feel free to come back to me if you need more info. I'd encourage anyone to get involved in teaching cookery to kids.

Best wishes

I post on several food forums and I'm always surprised a the disparity between the expertise shown on show and the

BEST PIZZA RESULTS IN MY CHIMINEA, EVER!

After a neglectful summer with my chiminea, I had an email from someone asking how I assembled the 'mini-oven' inside the chiminea, to trap the heat - otherwise lost through the thin metal walls of the chiminea.

I replied that I'd go through the process this weekend - and follow through with pizza - taking lots of photos as I went.

PICNIC FOOD FOR A DAY AT THE T20 CRICKET (VEGAN)

T20 Finals day, Saturday 17th August. 

My mate Alan had bought the tickets, arranged for a worst case scenario overnight stay in a hotel - the weather forecast was diabolical! - and was doing all the driving, leaving Taunton at 7.30 in the morning, and returning home well after midnight!

So I thought the least I could do would be to provide the food for the day.

Pizzas always keep well - roughly about a million times better than sandwiches! - and a well-filled bread pasty keeps all day and will hit the spot when required!

So, I set to the evening before and made a bread dough. I needed roughly 160g flour for each of the pizzas + 200g for the four pasties, so 500g of flour altogether.

FAMILY BREADMAKING AT CASTLE CARY

A brilliant (not my word) Family Learning session at the far end of Somerset this morning! Up at the crack of dawn (7.15 - well it is for me!) and out of the house at 7.45 for the 35 mile trip to Castle Cary primary school, where I had up to 15 families waiting to make bread.

In the event, there turned out to be 12 children and 10 parents in the session. One or two of the mothers had made bread, with varying rates of success, and there were a couple of students with experience of bread machines, and that was it. Lots of cooking going on, most making cakes with their children, but very little bread.

One of the students was a French chef, who managed a local eaterie - even he had never made bread!

After a demo from me, they all made a batch of dough, with the youngsters showing quite a bit of competence (these were year 2 children, aged 6 and 7). Then they divided the dough into 2 pieces, one large and one small. The large piece was turned into 4 or so rolls of varying shapes while the other bit was to be a pizza.

I'd taken my four small ovens along, but it was still nice to see a domestic oven in the small kitchen adjoining the "Hive" as the activities room was called.

Here's the setup - with 2 shelves in each of the small ovens and 3 in the large one. 11 in all - but with 2 trays each holding 2 batches, there was room for all the batches of bread at one time.

One of my small ovens in action

The batch on the right was hopelessly burnt, so I gave the family the bread I'd made for the demo - on the right

Each batch was numbered - that's number 5 on the left, not sure about the other one!

Another batch

One of the youngsters breaking off a bit of bread from his roll

More shapes and another taster for someone!

Pizzas proving

More pizzas

Proving and baking

Ready to eat...

And pretty well all gone!

The hardest thing for the adults in these classes is - not doing it for their children! The breadmaking is easy - keeping your hands out and letting the children get on with it is difficult for the adults. But I delight in showing them just how competent their children can be, when given a chance.

Before I left I gave them all some homework - to find someone who doesn't know how to make bread and teach them what they've learned today. Not only will this spread some breadmaking ripples around, but the students themselves will enhance their own breadmaking skills.

The feedback was universally positive - they all loved it and would like some more of these sessions!

One comment I particularly liked, when asked what the parent had enjoyed about the session, was:
"Sitting back and watching my child do baking and not needing any help. You never know what your child can do."

I must add, in conclusion, that I had great support from the course organiser, Maureen, and the class teacher, Emma. Thanks, guys!