This pizza was inspired by our favorite local pizza place. They put all kinds of crazy toppings on pizza – mashed potatoes, peanut butter, pasta, cream cheese, scrambled eggs, and many more! My favorite pizza is topped with mashed potatoes, BBQ sauce, chicken, and mozzarella. Since I stopped eating industrially processed meat, I [...]]]>

This pizza was inspired by our favorite local pizza place. They put all kinds of crazy toppings on pizza – mashed potatoes, peanut butter, pasta, cream cheese, scrambled eggs, and many more! My favorite pizza is topped with mashed potatoes, BBQ sauce, chicken, and mozzarella. Since I stopped eating industrially processed meat, I have missed eating this pizza.

Opportunities to purchase meat that satisfies my current standards (local, small scale, pasture raised, respectfully slaughtered) are few and far between. When I went on a farm tour at Quail Springs permaculture farm, I got the chance to order a couple of chickens from livestock manager Brenton Kelly.

The chickens were raised as an important part of the permaculture garden. They eat kitchen scraps and help keep weeds and bugs under control in the garden, while providing a valuable output to enrich the soil. When it comes time for the chickens to serve their next purpose (meat), Brenton uses a low-stress method to process the birds. If you are interested in this process, take a look at Brenton’s turkey processing photos (warning: photos are graphic).

To cook the chicken, I used Julia Child’s Casserole-Roasted Chicken with Tarragon recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. 1 (which also happens to be Meryl Streep’s favorite Julia Child recipe). As usual, Julia does not disappoint. This chicken is simple and flavorful!

To make the pizza, you’ll need:
Sourdough Pizza Crust
Olive Oil
Mashed Potatoes
Chicken slices, roasted or grilled
Red Onion, thinly sliced
Mozzarella and Gouda cheese (or your favorite cheese combo)
BBQ Sauce (recipe follows)

Preheat the oven to 450° for at least 45 minutes, with a baking stone in the oven. Pre-bake the crust, directly on the baking stone, until it is slightly puffy and starts to brown on the bottom. Using a pastry brush, spread a thin layer of olive oil all over the crust.

Spoon the mashed potatoes onto the crust and spread thin (you don’t want the toppings to be too heavy!). Add a thin layer of barbecue sauce over the potatoes. Arrange the chicken slices over the sauce and top with onions. Slice the mozzarella thinly and add to the pizza. Sprinkle with shredded Gouda cheese and drizzle with barbecue sauce.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the cheese is melty and the crust is brown.

Barbecue Sauce
Created by Simple Math Bakery
Yield: approximately 3 cups

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 chili pepper, minced
1 cup ketchup
1 cup beer
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons sucanat
3 tablespoons spicy brown mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, and chili pepper. Saute just until tender, about 3 minutes.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients and bring the sauce to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened, about 20-30 minutes.

I think they’d partake in a little bit of self-promotion, don’t you? These cupcakes are delicious, and they know it! It wasn’t much of a challenge to figure out what they were saying to me. Rich chocolate and dark brown sugar offset the flavors of Guinness perfectly. Topped with Bailey’s Irish Cream frosting, [...]]]>

I think they’d partake in a little bit of self-promotion, don’t you? These cupcakes are delicious, and they know it! It wasn’t much of a challenge to figure out what they were saying to me. Rich chocolate and dark brown sugar offset the flavors of Guinness perfectly. Topped with Bailey’s Irish Cream frosting, these cupcakes definitely make a statement!

Normally, I don’t publicize statements from my food. All the commentary is mine, and I just let the food look pretty in a few photos here and there. However, these cupcakes are so full of themselves that they wouldn’t settle for anything less than full-blown advertising!

And this time, I’ve let them have their say. Why? Because it’s time for the 2010 “Eating Your Words” challenge! The challenge is hosted by Tangled Noodle and Savor the Thyme.

So what makes these cupcakes so special? Start with a combination of Guinness, chocolate, brown sugar, and butter. Swirl in some sour cream along with the rest of the liquid ingredients. Fold in the flour, and you’ve got a darn good cupcake batter! I can definitely attest to the fact that this batter is much tastier than your average chocolate cupcake batter.

These cupcakes just wouldn’t stop talking! They know how much I like math, so they told me that Guinness has a connection to the mathematical field of statistics. In the early 1900′s, Guinness employed a statistician by the name of William Sealy Gossett. Gossett studied barley cultivation, researching ways to improve yield and select for favorable varieties for brewing Guinness. He derived Student’s t-distribution, a probability distribution used when sample sizes are small.

I’m not really sure what that means, so the cupcakes spelled it out for me.

I’m still not really sure what it means. Don’t worry, this equation is not part of the recipe. You’ll just need a basic understanding of fractions and a love for chocolate and beer.

Guinness Cupcakes
Adapted from Big City, Little Kitchen
Yield: 24 cupcakes

1 cup Guinness
9 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick plus 1 tablespoon)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a cupcake pan with paper liners, or grease the pan.

In a large saucepan, heat the Guinness and butter over medium-low heat until the butter melts. Remove the pan from the heat and add the cocoa powder and sugar, whisking to combine.

In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Stir the sour cream mixture into the Guinness mixture. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking soda, then fold it into the batter. Fill cupcake cups 2/3 full of batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, then remove cupcakes from the pan and cool directly on the cooling rack.

When completely cooled, frost with Bailey’s Irish Cream frosting, or your favorite frosting.

Bailey’s Irish Cream Frosting
Created by Simple Math Bakery
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons Bailey’s
1 tablespoon milk
4 cups confectioner’s sugar, sifted

With an electric mixer, combine the butter, Bailey’s, and milk on low speed. Slowly add confectioner’s sugar until desired frosting consistency is reached. Beat until smooth, about 3 minutes.

The liquor gives this frosting a slightly different consistency, making it a bit more difficult to spread. You may want to add some extra liquid, one tablespoon at a time.

The cupcakes have rearranged themselves once again. I’ll let them have the final word.

Everything tastes better with cheese, and bread is no exception. [...]]]>
I am continually amazed by how many variations and adaptations of bread exist. You can add pretty much anything to bread and it will taste amazing. Pick your favorite fruit, vegetable, or beverage. I guarantee there’s a bread recipe out there for it.

Everything tastes better with cheese, and bread is no exception. Cheddar combines with chives and beer to create a wonderfully flavorful bread. The chives add a subtle onion flavor, and the beer complements the cheese.

The flavor of the month is boozy! When I saw this beer at the store, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into a recipe. I think perhaps the label drew me in. The “Simpler Times” logo is great branding. Don’t we all want to just slow down and relax every once in a while?

The six-packs of beer were part of a Trader Joe’s display including a beer bread mix. A mix? But I want to make my bread the old-fashioned way! So I picked up a six-pack (at the mighty fine price of $2.99) and went home to find a suitable recipe.

I found it in one of the cookbooks I received for Christmas. Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day takes artisan bread recipes and breaks them down into manageable chunks of time that can fit into most of our schedules.

Let’s get started! For this particular bread, the dough is mixed and kneaded before being placed in the fridge to rise for up to 4 days. This is what my dough looked like after kneading:

And after rising in the fridge overnight:

The loaves are so simple to shape. Once the dough has risen, you just roll it out into a rectangle. Then sprinkle some cheese over the top and roll it up!

Place it into the pan to rise once more.

Here’s where I got distracted and forgot to poke the loaves to prevent air from building up inside the loaf. Since the cheese is rolled up inside, air can get trapped in there and cause a cheese explosion in the oven! Some of the cheese from my loaves ended up dripping down the side a bit, and it left a large gaping hole in the bread.

The huge bubble made the loaf a little bit difficult to slice, but it’s very tasty!

The original recipe calls for bread flour, but since I only had 2 cups of bread flour left I made up the difference with white whole wheat flour. The bread came out delicious, and perhaps it’s even healthier this way!

Beer Cheese Bread
Adapted from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day
Yield: 2 loaves

2 cups bread flour
4 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons salt
3 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 cup lukewarm beer
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons lukewarm buttermilk
1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
1 small bunch fresh chives, optional (I used approximately 0.6 ounces)
7 ounces shredded cheese (I used Kerrygold Reserve cheddar)

The day before you want to bake the bread:

In a large bowl, whisk the flours and salt together. In a separate bowl, dissolve the honey into the lukewarm beer. Add the buttermilk and yeast to the beer, whisking until combined.

Pour the liquid mixture and the melted butter into the flour mixture. Mix by hand with a large spoon for about 2 minutes, or mix with the paddle attachment of your mixer on low speed.

Allow the dough to rest for 5 minutes. Continue to mix by hand, or with the dough hook attachment, for another 3 minutes. If the dough is too dry, add some more beer, one tablespoon at a time. If the dough is too wet, add some more flour, 1/4 cup at a time. My dough seemed a little dry, and I ended up using an additional 2 tablespoons of beer. The dough should be soft and tacky, but not sticky. Add the chives and mix gently for an additional minute or so until incorporated.

Knead the dough in the bowl for a minute or two, and then form the dough into a large ball. Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl or rising bucket that is big enough to allow the dough to double in size. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator overnight (you can leave it in the fridge for up to 4 days).

Alternatively, if you want to bake the bread the same day, you can just let it rise at room temperature for 60 to 90 minutes (until it doubles in size).

If you’ve refrigerated the dough, remove it from the fridge about 2 hours before you’d like to bake it. Divide the dough into 2 equal pieces. Lightly flour your work surface and roll one piece of the dough into a rectangle 8 inches by 12 inches. Sprinkle 1/2 of the shredded cheese over the dough. Starting with the short end of the dough, roll it up like a rug. Pinch the seam closed with your fingertips, sealing the cheese inside. Pinch the ends closed as well. Repeat with the second half of the dough.

Place the dough, seam side down, into two greased 4 1/2 inch by 8 inch loaf pans. Alternatively, you can slice the rolled up dough into 1 1/2 inch thick slices to make rolls (and place in greased round pans instead of loaf pans). Let the dough rise for about 90 minutes, or until it rises 1 inch above the rim of the pans. My dough took about 2 hours to rise.

During the last 30 minutes of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°. Before placing the pans in the oven, poke the loaves a few times with a toothpick or skewer. This will allow air to escape and prevent the cheese from exploding through the crust while baking. Bake the loaves for 20 minutes, rotate the pans, then bake for an additional 30 minutes. When done, the crust will be a deep golden brown. For rolls, bake for a total of 20-25 minutes.

Remove the bread from the pans immediately and cool on a cooling rack.