Two posts ago I shared my sausage pizza bank holiday lunch with you. That used 200g of dough. 200g is a pitifully small quantity – you end up with practically as much on your hands as on the bench. So I make up multiples of that amount, use what I need and put the remainder back in the fridge where it will happily carry on a slow fermentation for a few more days. In this case I made 800g, used 200g for the pizza leaving 600g surplus (guess who got ‘O’ level maths back in 1963?).
Usually I end up baking a few instant 100g buns – that is, shape the buns, turn on the oven to 300C top and bottom, the only proving time being until the oven is up to speed, a quick 15 or so minutes bake.
But, I thought, back in the days of baking for sale, we used to do a weekly flatbread many of which were various focacce. (Do you know the difference between deep pan pizza and focaccia? No, nor me …)
So this time I made two old favourites at 300g each:
Sue’s favourite, Caramelized Onion and Black Olive. Onions fried gently in olive oil with rosemary and a sprinkling of sugar until caramelized. Spread over the dough and studded with kalamata olives.
Black grape and fennel seed with a sprinkle of sugar. Don’t mix up the olives with the grapes …
Then, of course, I’m faced with the ongoing problem of cooking for one. My solution? Quarter them and freeze them. Didn’t think they would freeze well. But the first one defrosted and 4 minutes in a hot oven was fine. Nice little nibble before the main event.
The PArtisan Baker 