Lazy Man's Awesome Daily Fresh Bread + Recipes

[FrenchTart]

A few people may have seen my spamming of home made pizzas in the Show off Your Dish thread. I do love pizza (nearly as much as Cainer) and I love making it at home as it's so tasty but it has always been a battle of delicious pizza versus how incredibly lazy I am.

As such, I combined a few tips from here and various techniques I've read about online with the ultimate aim of:

1) Having fresh pizza dough and/or bread dough daily if I want it.
2) Make dough as quickly and as easily as possible - kneading is tedious, waiting to rise is tedious.
3) Have the resulting bread taste delicious and up to my high standards of deliciousness that is delicious.
4) Delicious.

After lots of different experiments and the hard work of eating countless tasty pizzas I worked out that I could make a giant batch of dough on Sundays and, utilising a no-knead technique, portion that dough up into balls around the right size for making a pizza and/or a small bread bloomer and then leave those to rise in the fridge ready for use throughout the following week.

The bread is risen enough for pizza after about 24/36 hours in the fridge and actually gets better/more tasty as the week goes on. By the following weekend you probably either want to use up any remaining dough or to mix it in with a new batch.

I will be adding pictures and the recipes/techniques during the next couple of days.

 

[FrenchTart]

Dough Recipe

The dough is a fairly classic pizza dough but with some tips from places like Serious Eats and the like (basically the addition of olive oil and a bit of brown sugar and to make the dough slightly more wet than normal).

This will make enough for ~6 medium-small pizzas or small bloomers.

Ingredients

• 1kg 00 Flour (strong white bread will also work and be better for bloomers, though worse for pizza)
• ~4 teaspoons of salt
• ~1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1 packet of dried yeast
• ~600ml water (temperature unimportant as long as is isn't boiling)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• Clingfilm
• Extra oil for greasing the clingfilm

Technique

1. Mix together the dry ingredients.
2. Add the water and olive oil.
3. Mix everything together until it is smooth (should take ~5 minutes).
4. Break up the dough into 6 equally sized pieces (should be about the size of your fist).
5. Lube up your first piece of clingfilm (which should be big enough to wrap the dough ball twice around.
6. Wrap up your dough ball and stick it in the fridge.
7. Repeat for the rest of the dough balls.

The dough balls will double in size over the next 24-48 hours. They can be used sooner than that but you will need to allow them a few hours to rise at room temperature. If you plan to use them immediately you should knead the dough balls a bit too before allowing them to rise (effort).

Possible Problems

Dough too dry?
The dough should feel like plasticine in your hands and should stretch a bit without breaking. If it is too crumbly or there are bits that seem much drier than the rest, add a little (25ml at a time) water and mix it in. This will get messy

Dough too wet?
If the dough is runny you've added too much water. Add more flour. If you've run out of flour, leave the house to buy more and then add it - the dough won't spoil whilst you're out.

Why bother using clingfilm? Such a faff.
If left uncovered in the fridge the dough will dry out on the surface and will be unusable. If you've got a giant tupperware container you could leave the dough balls in this (with a gap between them) instead if you like. Be sure to grease or dust the container with flour though.

After four days the tops of my dough balls look a little yellow/sad.
With the clingfilm technique this will happen after a while and is just the top of the dough drying out slightly. It won't affect your pizzas and you can work around this for your bloomers by brushing the top of the dough ball with butter or milk (or possibly water but I haven't tested that).

 

[FrenchTart]

Bread Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 dough ball from above
• Some flour or (better) cornmeal for dusting
• Some melted butter or milk

• Pizza stone/cast iron pan
• Greaseproof paper

Technique

1. Place pizza stone/cast iron pan on an oven shelf. Make sure there is plenty of space above it for the bread to rise.
2. Pre-heat oven to the hottest it will go (mine hits about ~250C).
3. Take out one of your dough balls that has been in the fridge for at least 36 hours.
4. Take a small piece of greaseproof paper and dust with cornmeal/flour.
5. Remove clingfilm from dough ball and place it gently on greaseproof paper. Do not shape the dough or knead it at this point.
6. Brush the top of the dough ball with melted butter or milk.
7. Use the sheet of greaseproof paper to lift up the dough ball and place it in the oven.
8. The bread will take 15-25 minutes to bake.
9. Check after 15 minutes using either an instant read thermometer (should be ~87C in the centre) or using the "tap the bread to see if it sounds hollow" technique. The bread should also turn a golden colour rather than brown or black.
10. If the bread isn't done yet check again in ~2.5 minutes.
11. Once done, take the bread out and place it on a wire rack to cool.

The bread will taste best if it is given about an hour to cool but as I'm impatient I sometimes rip into it immediately and drench it in butter. Nom nom nom.

Pictures

Dough ball risen:

Dough ball greased up and ready to bake:

Bread out of oven and cooling:

Possible Problems

The bread tastes 'doughy' or looks a bit uncooked in the middle.
You took it out too soon. Get another dough ball out of the fridge and try leaving it in longer this time (or maybe your oven wasn't pre-heated enough?).

The bread is extremely dry.
You left it in too long. Try again with less cooking time.

 

[FrenchTart]

Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 dough ball from above
• Some flour or (better) cornmeal for dusting
• 1 fresh mozzarella ball (I find the Sainsbury's basics one for 50p to be fine). You could use dry/grated mozzarella instead if you like.
• Some tomato puree (Sainsburys Taste the Difference with Basil is awesome). Don't cheap out on this ingredient.
• Chorizo or pepperoni or some other kind of salami or meat
• 1 clove of fresh garlic
• A few slices of onion
• 1 mushroom
• Course sea salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Chillies, to taste
• 1 Teaspoon olive oil

• Pizza stone/cast iron pan
• Pizza or cake peel

Technique

OPTIONAL: Take the dough ball out an hour before you use it. Bringing it up to room temperature will make it a little easier to work with but I don't find that this is required so don't feel that you have to.

1. Place pizza stone/cast iron pan on a high oven shelf. There should be about 3 inches between it and the grill elements.
2. Turn your grill on to hottest and leave it to pre-heat the oven and pizza stone.
3. If you are using fresh mozzarella take it out of the packaging now and slice into ~0.5cm thick slices. Place these slices between several layers of kitchen towels. This is to remove excess moisture from the mozzarella and if you don't do it your pizza will look like it is flooded with water on top.
4. Take out one of your dough balls that has been in the fridge for at least 36 hours.
5. Dust a clean work surface with cornmeal or flour (you'll need a lot and I *really* recommend cornmeal over flour).
6. Remove clingfilm from dough ball and place your dusted work surface.
7. Slowly stretch out the pizza dough from the middle, using the flat of your hands. I will try to find a good video for this sometime. The Heston Blumenthal video about 'perfect pizza' has the basic technique I use. There are better techniques involving tossing the dough around but they're more advanced/difficult. If you get any tears/holes don't worry too much - just patch them up or stretch it back.
8. Dust your pizza peel with more cornmeal/flour and then gently lift the pizza dough on to the peel.
9. Add a small amount of olive oil to the top of the pizza and spread it out to cover the entire area that you will be later covering with tomato.
10. Add about a heaped tablespoon of tomato puree to the pizza and spread it out to evenly cover the pizza.
11. Add the mozzerella slices. Break them up a bit if you like your cheese more uniform and less 'together'. Leave them whole if you like 'pools' of gloopy mozzarella.
12. Add your other toppings as you like them. If you are using sliced chorizo I would recommend folding the slices over twice and then gently cooking them in a pan first. This will render out a lot of the fat and make the end pizza a lot less greasy.
13. Use the pizza peel to move the pizza to the now smoking-hot pizza stone/cast iron pan. I find it best to hold it the peel level with the stone/pan and then gently shake the pizza backwards and forwards. It will begin to slowly move forwards and once it reaches about 1/3rd of the way off I position the pizza on the stone/pan and then move the peel towards me - the pizza should adhere to the stone/pan and stay in place.
14. Place the pizza, now on the stone/pan under the grill and close your oven door.
15. The pizza should be done in ~5 minutes. Check it after about 3 and take out once you can see that it has browned on top.
16. Add black pepper, sea salt crystals (don't crush them, just sprinkle them) and chilli to taste.

The grill and super hot pizza stone/cast iron pan technique will give you a super crispy and delicious crust and means that the whole pizza cooks in an extremely short amount of time.

I actually use a cast iron pizza stone which allows me to warm the pizza stone on the hob if I want to speed things up.

Possible Problems

I don't have a pizza stone or cast iron pan. What can I do?
You can cook the pizza on a baking tray in a pre-heated oven set to the hottest it will go and it will still be great. The only issue you may have is that the base isn't as crispy on the bottom but you may be able to get around this by moving the baking tray on to the hob to be heated through a little more after you take the pizza out of the oven.

I don't have a pizza peel. What can I do?
You can just place the base on some tinfoil or even on a cold baking tray. Results won't be quite as good but it will still be great.

The base isn't crispy. Waa.
Your pizza stone probably wasn't hot enough. Try placing the pizza on a baking tray and putting it over the hob for a bit (assuming your baking tray can take this kind of punishment).

My pizza has pools of liquid floating on top. Waa.
You probably didn't remove enough water from the mozzarella or you used some greasy meat without rendering out the fat first. The quick and nasty workaround is to use kitchen roll to soak up the liquid.

My pizza is cooked but looks a little pale.
This can happen, especially if your grill is a bit sucky. I use a cooks' blowtorch (or better yet, a butane welding torch) to brown off the cheese and dough.

 

[FrenchTart]

Flat bread/garlic bread/focaccia-like recipe

***Reserved***

 

[CHokKA]

Dude, you're so awesome! This is an epic thread and something I'll definitely be giving a go next week! Have some stars! That pizza you posted in the first thread looks immense. How long had the dough been in the fridge for that you used in that one?

 

[cainer]

nice thread, what does the cost per pizza work out to when making enough dough for a batch? (inc toppings etc)

 

[Jonny69]

Just to clarify, for the bread, are you baking your dough ball straight from the fridge? No additional rise required? I take it you're not shaping it at all or you'll knock all the air out of it.

 

[Quartz]

How can the dough rise if you've wrapped it in clingfilm?

 

[FrenchTart]

Dude, you're so awesome! This is an epic thread and something I'll definitely be giving a go next week! Have some stars! That pizza you posted in the first thread looks immense. How long had the dough been in the fridge for that you used in that one?

Thanks That one was actually made by not leaving it in the fridge to rise (i.e. I kneaded and then left to rise out of the fridge for a few hours). I promise you that other pizzas made with this method look the same though (example pizza - though too many toppings on this one)

nice thread, what does the cost per pizza work out to when making enough dough for a batch? (inc toppings etc)

Good question. Trying to very roughly work it out it's something like this for a batch of 6 pizzas:

1kg flour - £1
yeast - ~20p
sugar, salt, olive oil - ~20p
mozzarella (fresh) - 6 x 50p = £3
other toppings - about £3 for the stuff in this recipe

Total - £7.40 - about £1.25 per pizza (plus whatever it costs to run your oven)

You could easily use cheaper ingredients - cheese and other toppings are where the main expense is.

Just to clarify, for the bread, are you baking your dough ball straight from the fridge? No additional rise required? I take it you're not shaping it at all or you'll knock all the air out of it.

Good point. I'll add that info to the post now. For the bread you literally just take it out of the clingfilm, plop it (carefully) down on the dusted greaseproof paper, butter/milk it up and you're good to go. The shape can be a little eclectic (see the pictures I'm just uploading) but I like to think of it as "rustic"

How can the dough rise if you've wrapped it in clingfilm?

The dough rises and stretches/pushes the clingfilm. I'm just uploading a picture that will probably make it more clear

 

[Maxeh]

Do you always make batches of dough or do you make enough for just 1 sometimes?

It's usually just me eating /foreveralone (but a double serving would be fine )

 

[FrenchTart]

Do you always make batches of dough or do you make enough for just 1 sometimes?

It's usually just me eating /foreveralone (but a double serving would be fine )

I used to just make one but now I would probably always make a batch (even if it is a small batch, like 1/4 the recipe). Purely because the dough lasts for a week and the most effort/work really is in the weighing and mixing of all the ingredients

Aside from my housemate/landlord I'm currently foreveralone.jpg too Group/housemate meals often happen though.

 

[Maxeh]

Got a fail safe version using say 200g flour? Or just simply 1/5 everything?

 

[FrenchTart]

Got a fail safe version using say 200g flour? Or just simply 1/5 everything?

You should be safe to just 1/5th everything. I've definitely made it that way before.

If you were *really* worried about it you could either look up some videos where they show dough (so you can get an idea of the consistency) or be really wasteful and make one batch a little wetter and one a little drier at the same time and then test the two The main "problem" with dough is getting the amount of water correct really.

 

[f00b4r]

Nice post
My only suggestion would be to add bread finishing temperatures for those with thermometers with temp probes?

 

[john_s]

Yummy!

I'm hungry and it's a long time until dinner time now!

Very tempted to give this a go at weekend.

 

[FrenchTart]

Nice post
My only suggestion would be to add bread finishing temperatures for those with thermometers with temp probes?

I already added the finishing temperature to the bread - is there something else I've missed? Or perhaps I need to make it more obvious/stand out more?

Yummy!

I'm hungry and it's a long time until dinner time now!

Very tempted to give this a go at weekend.

You definitely should It's awesome being able to have really fresh bread/pizza without all the faff.

 

[Stan_Lite]

Sounds like a good idea. I probably won't make much pizza (although I will occasionally) but the idea of quick small loaves of bread appeals to me (I live alone).

One thing. You say the internal temperature of the bread should be ~87C. When I did my bread-making class, I was told ~94C and that is the temperature I always aim for.

 

[FrenchTart]

Sounds like a good idea. I probably won't make much pizza (although I will occasionally) but the idea of quick small loaves of bread appeals to me (I live alone).

One thing. You say the internal temperature of the bread should be ~87C. When I did my bread-making class, I was told ~94C and that is the temperature I always aim for.

I've been a bit lazy about that actually From what I remember, there are a couple of temperatures to aim for and which one you go for primarily depends on whether or not you have enriched your bread with egg/milk. 94C *I think* is the sort of temperature that enriched bread should be at. 87C is more like the temperature for non-enriched bread.

Happy to change the guide if anyone is certain I'm wrong though

 

[Stan_Lite]

I've been a bit lazy about that actually From what I remember, there are a couple of temperatures to aim for and which one you go for primarily depends on whether or not you have enriched your bread with egg/milk. 94C *I think* is the sort of temperature that enriched bread should be at. 87C is more like the temperature for non-enriched bread.

Happy to change the guide if anyone is certain I'm wrong though

I found the same when I was checking online before posting but decided to stick with what I was taught. I also found a couple of sites saying 100C - which sounds ludicrous.

At the end of the day, whatever works is good. 94C works for me so I'm happy to stick with it. I might try one at 87C to see if there's a noticeable difference.