Kurt's Bachelor Cooking

[Alton331]

I used the bread recipe above "as is" for pizza dough once before. It was OK but was "too bready" tasting, so I tried something a little different this time.

I cut the yeast to 2 teaspoons and instead of salt I used garlic salt and added some italian seasoning to the flout.

I'v read about xanthum gum which is used to make pizza and french bread more "chewey" but I didn't have any. So I googled "xanthum gum substitute" and saw a site that said you could use plain gelatin instead. So I added a teaspoon of gelatin to the flour.

I used the bread machine on the "dough" cycle to knead and rise the dough.

Then I used a rolling pin for the dough. I noticed this time it seemed to shring back a lot more this time as I rolled it and it took more rolling to get it to the right size and thickness.

I baked it at 425f for about 14 mins.

It was really good! The gelatin really made a noticable difference in the crust. BTW the pic below uses a 16 inch pizza pan and there was enough dough to also make another smaller pizza using a baking sheet. I need some work on shaping the pizza into a better circle but I'm more into taste than looks.

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Here's an interesting article on how to make your own yeast at home. This is how bread was made for 1000s of years before commercial yeast was created about 100 years ago.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/31/21199...self-bread

I started this a couple of days ago to see how it goes. I didn't notice at first but this is actually sourdough starter. After some research, I think this is how to adapt my bread recipe above to use sourdough starter instead of store bought yeast. Bascially you substitute a cup of starter in place of the yeast/

Since the cup of starter is half water and half flour, you need to take out half a cup of water and half a cup of flour from the recipe. It also needs to rise for a lot longer, for 4 hours. So I'll use the dough cycle on my machine then take it out and put it on a baking sheet to let it rise longer.

Adjusted recipe for home made sourdough bread:
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons sugar (honey/brown sugar, etc)
1/4 cup cooking oil
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

Use dough cycle
Take out the bread and shape it on a baking sheet
Let rise for 4 more hours.

Add a pan of water to the oven and bake at 425 for about 40 minutes (I think).

I'll try this in a few days and let you know...