I enjoyed baking even when I was a teenager. I usually baked cakes using boxed cake mixes and ready made frostings. I also made my own frosting as experiments. Sometimes back then I remember that I baked a log cake made out of egg whites and it had custard rolled in it. I did not try baking breads and pies but I did pastries native to Filipinos such as tarts, polvoron, candies, and few rice cakes. During and after college, I stopped. It has been decades before I came back to what I enjoyed doing, baking cakes. I applied at Wal-Mart as a part-time cake decorator and got the job when I went back to school again. I very much enjoyed it. I realized I am coming back to my creative side. Within six months, I surpassed the skills of the cake decorators who had been there for more than a year. It became my joy to bring birthday cakes for church member when we celebrate each month. I have been having an itch to bake home made pizza. I love pizza, why not make it at home.
Last week, I bought a 10 lb. bag of baking flour at Sam’s Club and other baking stuff. I tried to make bread dough few months ago but It was not right. I know that I need to learn the basics such as the tricks of making bread or pizza dough. Once I learn that, the topping would be easy because I can cook and I am creative. Today, I experimented on making pizza dough. It did not rise well eventhough I read the baking book. The yeast should be bubbly in warm water after 5 minutes and it did. The water was around 110-120 degrees F. I know the dough should be smooth and has elasticity but it was not. I had a hard time using the rolling pin on the dough but surprisingly, I did not get frustrated. Anyway, I used the dough. I spread my own home made tomato sauce on half of the pizza dough. I sautéed fresh tomato with garlic, onion, saffron, salt & pepper. It has a sweet taste to it. On the other half, I spread a home made pesto. The ingredients were walnuts, fresh basil (I have grown), asiago cheese, parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt & pepper. I used Kraft mozzarella cheese on top of the sauce, put pieces of ham (deli), fresh chopped basil leaves, a little bit of shredded asiago and parmesan cheese. I must say, the sauce and topping were excellent but my pizza crust was not right. Anyway, the topping rescued my pizza crust. I took a picture of the final product. As you can see, I used the iron pan for baking (another experiment). Maybe the iron pan saved the crust because the crust was crispy, but hard. I need to buy this pizza stone baking pan soon. This afternoon, I prepared pizza dough and left it in a warm place for 2 hrs. or so but it only rose 20%. Not a good one.
