OK…Here we go again, Baking with Mark brings you another non-baking Blog post.

Kombucha!

Don’t know what it is?

Here you go: http://www.bing.com/search?q=Kombucha

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

Wiki How: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Kombucha-Tea

The Happy Herbalist: http://www.happyherbalist.com/kombucha.htm

Hannah’s Kombucha Kamp: http://www.kombuchakamp.com/

And the main purpose of this Blog post, due to the current World concerns over Radiation contamination:
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/chelating-ionizing-radiation.html

You can find lots of information about the benefits of drinking Kombucha.

I’m a firm believer in the miracle properties.

Some of you know I raced Motorcycles for 16 years.

I’ve broken just about everything, including my back.

Back in 2000 I had a bad crash on a Sport bike, through a fence and over a 70 foot drop.

I’m tough, have been through a lot and bounce back, but this one really rang my bell.

For the longest time I started getting migraine headaches each night in the same frontal left section of my brain.

Without doing exploratory surgery the doctors couldn’t ascertain what was causing this.

I decided to try Kombucha, and to my amazement the migraines went away and have not returned.

You can find thousands of stories from people who have had miraculous cures by drinking Kombucha each day.

I drink more than most people because I like strong Teas, Tea-sans and Espresso.

This is my Espresso/Tea area:

I start each day with fresh ground Espresso. Pure Espresso, no milk or sugar ever.

Then I drink some fresh water.

Around 10am each day I have a tall glass of Kombucha.

For the rest of the day I drink a variety of tea or tea-sans (Like Roses) and water.

At around 3pm each day I have another tall glass of Kombucha.

Then for the rest of the day nothing but water.

I do not drink colas, alcoholic drinks or anything that is unhealthy ever.

Why am I telling you this? Because I’m a firm believer in the Health benefits of running the proper drinks through your system.

I’m never tired or sick, no allergies, I turn 50 this year and feel like a kid, and still run 8k in under 35 minutes.

OK, ready to grow your own?

The first thing you need is a SCOBY.

SCOBY = Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast

This is the beautiful creature that grows on the top of your jug of Kombucha.

You may be able to find a local source, maybe even a friend, but you can also order a SCOBY kit from Hannah:  http://www.kombuchakamp.com/kombucha-cultures

Let me take you on a journey…
These are the steps I take once each week to gather two half gallon jugs of Kombucha and then refill the Kombucha constant brew system in my home.

1) Here are two views of where I keep the Constant Brew system in my Library.

2) If you lift that cloth from the top and look in this is what you see, the SCOBY happily floating on the top alive and well:

3) These are the glass jugs I collect it in. I keep them full of water until I’m ready to refill, this is to keep the jugs clean.

Note: Using two half gallon jugs makes it easier to pour from and I can keep one jug downstairs in the fridge while my main jug is upstairs in the fridge.

As I empty each jug I rinse it out and fill it with clean water until I make a new brew, once each week.

4) The first thing you need is some whole leaf Green tea. I use 5 teaspoons, which I measure from a glass measuring cup.

5) This is the tea placed in the reusable teabag:

6) Now we need to boil 4 cups of purified water. (Never use chlorinated water, not for your tea, your Kombucha or your baking.)

7) Once the water has boiled let it rest, off the burner, for 2 minutes. Then add the water and your teabag and allow them to brew for 15 minutes.

8) After 15 minutes of brewing remove the teabag and mix in 1 cup of sugar. Use good quality sugar for this.

During this entire time you need to be very careful and not allow anything to become contaminated.

Also do not allow any of the tea to escape into the mixture, it will grow on your SCOBY.

Any contamination will cause mold to grow on your SCOBY and you will have to get rid of it and start over.

9) Now add 8 cups of purified water to this, then you are ready to pour it back into your Constant Brew jug.

See the Bamboo tool on top of the tea pitcher below? I place this over the SCOBY when I pour the new tea mixture in, this keeps it from getting disturbed.

10) These are the freshly refilled glass bottles that will last me for the next 7 days:

11) And this is the cup of Green tea I make with the leftover teabag, plus the container I put the used tea into, which I use outside for the plants later.

So there you go. A totally beneficial system with zero waste.

Learn what you can about the benefits of Kombucha, you’ll be amazed.

A few notes:

a) The sugar is not for sweetness, it’s fuel for the SCOBY.

b) The Constant Brew system needs air but not a lot, it needs to be warm but not hot, and you need to keep the bugs out so no cheesecloth, use fabric that can breathe.

c) There is a slight scent that comes from the Constant Brew jug, it’s a pleasant odor but one you will need to decide where it fits.

My Library has natural wood shelves that I built and an earthy feeling, the smell of the Kombucha is welcome in there.

d) You do not need to spend a lot for the jugs you use. Those glass bottles can be bought with lemonade or milk, just drink the product and keep the free jugs.

The Constant Brew jug needs to block out the light and the one pictured works great because of the spout. You can purchase them on Amazon or at Earthfare for $28.

If I can be of any additional help with this please let me know.

Here’s to your health!

Created for Baking with Mark on Posterous.com

Handmade Rigatoni!

(With Turkey meatballs)

Yes I’m shouting, this is such an awesome thing to make at home.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s day so I’m pouring a lot of Love into this one.

We’re going to make homemade baked Rigatoni with meatballs, juicy Turkey meatballs.

This is something you need to be in the mood for, it’s not going to be easy, but it is ever so rewarding.

First the Pasta.

You may already know there are a zillion recipes for Pasta.
Hard to believe Eggs and Flour can be so complicated, right?

If you search on-line you’ll find arguments about which ingredients to use and how to mix the Pasta.

This is baked Pasta we’re making so I’m using Olive oil in the mix with a bit of Kosher salt.

I’m also going to mix this in a bowl rather than the traditional Italian method of making a mound of flour.

I’d like to mention that I’m not perfect but I am a perfectionist.
Working with Pasta in Stainless Steel bowls is very efficient.

Because this Pasta is baked I’m only using All Purpose flour.
There are many mixtures that can be used to make Pasta.
Lord willing I’ll be getting into those soon as this is the first in a series on Pasta making.

Pasta ingredients:

427g (15.06 ounces) AP flour

1 teaspoon Kosher salt.

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons Olive oil.

As shown above mix the dry ingredients then make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in the eggs and Olive oil.

Once you blend everything together it should look like this:

You can also use a Food processor to blend Pasta dough. It needs to be a strong Food processor, Pasta dough really bogs them down.

If the dough is very dry you can add a few tablespoons of water or a bit more egg. Typically you use 1 egg per cup of flour in pasta.

Once the dough is mixed. . .use your hands and “heal” the dough into a ball.

Once you have it “healed” together. . .wrap it tightly in food wrap.

Note: Do not knead this dough.

All you want to do it “heal” it together, as shown above, then wrap it up and place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour.

For the Pasta we’re making here I sometimes make the dough the day before then create the Pasta the next day.

When you take it out of the fridge use a pastry blade and chop it into four parts, keep three of them wrapped while you work on the first.

That dough above is cold, it will meld in your hands somewhat like butter.

Just take one and meld it, like working with clay, or making a snowball.

This is what we’re going to shape our Rigatoni with:

I believe that to be the best value for homemade shaped Pasta.
You can order them from my eStore, Amazon store linked from the main page of this blog.

They cost less than half of what the attachments cost for mixers, and while it’s made of plastic it is made by a very good Italian company.

Many people have asked them to make this in steel but I don’t think we would be able to afford one.
While this one costs about $68 the steel versions I’ve seen of this same machine are more than $500.

These are the attachments you get with it:

For the Rigatoni we’re making I’m going to use the attachment that’s in the machine above.

That project board is what I make Pasta on, dough does not stick to that material. It’s available in Lumber stores, just typical project board.

The only other thing you need is a very sharp knife to slice the Pasta off when it reaches the proper length:

And after a bit of cranking this is what I did with the dough we just made:

That amount of dough made 158 individual Rigatoni.

I took the blade out so you could see how easy this is to clean-up.

You don’t have to keep these noodles covered once they’re shaped, you can let them sit there and dry, completely if you want.

We didn’t have to do anything to that dough once it came out of the fridge, just feed it into the top of this machine and crank.

Because this is going to be baked I want to take the “rubberiness” out of it so I’m going to boil these for 3 minutes then drop them into cold water.

I could bake these as they are but they would be a bit tough, by boiling them for 3 minutes we prevent that.

The reason we’ll drop them in cold water after they boil is so they cool quickly. This is important because this is fresh pasta and we’re baking it.

A few notes about boiling fresh pasta. . .

1) Never add oil to the water. This does not keep them from sticking, it does however make the fresh pasta slippery and your sauce won’t bond to it.

2) Do salt the water you’re boiling fresh pasta in. This is your chance to add the final seasoning.
Remember the key to proper seasoning is salting properly.

3) Use a large pot. The starches in fresh pasta fill the water quickly and begin to alter the Pasta.

By using a large pot to boil your fresh Pasta you reduce the effect of the starchy water.

This is my setup. The bowl on the right is cold water, on the left is the fresh pasta.

I’ll use that same glass bowl to bring the pasta back from the cold water bowl after they have boiled for 3 minutes.

The ones pictured above have not been boiled yet.

OK, good job, we’ve made our Pasta and it looks yummy.

While the dough was in the fridge I used that hour to make the Turkey meatballs.

That’s not much ground Turkey but all we’re using it for is a good amount of meatballs for our baked Rigatoni.

These are my ingredients:

1.5 pounds lean ground Turkey.

One small onion finely chopped.

One clove of Garlic very finely chopped.

Ground Oregano and Mint plus Salt and Pepper, according to your taste.

1 Large Egg.

Bread crumbs.

2-3 Tablespoons of Miraclewhip or Mayo.

Let’s talk about the bread crumbs.

You’re drying out your leftover bread and grinding it up, right?

Fresh breadcrumbs from your own homemade bread used in this recipe make a world of difference.

Before I began this project I got the food processor out, with the sharp steel blade, and made these lovely crumbs:

You can see the flavor in there can’t you? It makes a big difference. Try making your own breadcrumbs, if you don’t already.

How much breadcrumbs? In the photo below you can see that I try to add enough to cover the amount of Turkey used:

Then the fun part. . .Get your hands in there and mix that up!

The way I do my meatballs for baked Pasta dishes is to cook them on an iron skillet:

That skillet is over a medium heat, don’t cook these too fast.

When these were done the smell was nothing short of awesome:

I don’t remember where I got that little metal spatula but it sure is handy.

By the way, see those droppings left in the skillet? Scrape those off into your sauce for the baked Rigatoni, those are flavor cells.

OK, we’ve made our Pasta and our Meatballs.

What about the sauce? For this I used fresh tomatoes.

I sliced them then processed them, and then I added the following:

1) All the fresh spices any of use normally toss into pasta sauce.

2) Roasted red peppers.

3) Sliced black olives.

4) Sliced mushrooms.

Once the pasta was in the baking dish I added the sauce mixture.

Now I added a variety of grated cheeses.

Mozzarella, Provolone, Romano, Parmesan, Fontina, Asiago and Manchego.

Then on the top I added the meatballs, with a small amount of the sauce on top of each.

I baked this at 425 degrees F for 30 minutes.

What a huge success! The flavors were all well very wellmated, the meatballs were moist and the pasta was perfect.

Now it’s your turn, go do better, make something exciting and do your best to be Super.

Created for Baking with Mark on Posterous.com

This is a quick blog post that is intended to serve as more of a caution.

If you are following this Blog you know I use Stainless Steel bowls to work with dough.

When I recommend Stainless Steel bowls to others I often forget to offer a word of caution.

As it is with most things nowadays you have to be very careful with the source and quality of products.

This is definitely the case with Stainless Steel bowls sold for Bakers and Chefs.

I have many Stainless Steel bowls. The three bowls I used the most are pictured below:

Each of those bowls are heavy with good workmanship built into them.

The largest bowl on the left is the one that I’m using most of the time.
The one on the top right is what I use mostly for handmade Pasta.

Then there’s that small one on the bottom right, which I use for small jobs, with the straight sides it’s handy for many specific jobs.

A Stainless Steel bowl should not be so light that it moves around easily.

It should also have smooth edges.
Many of the bowls being sold have dangerous rolled edges that have razor sharp un-trimmed steel inside the rolled lip.

This is what a bad/dangerous edge looks like:

The edge above will actually cut your hands if you’re not careful. (Center of rolled edge shown above.)

You don’t want to use bowls like that, don’t purchase them.

This is what the inside edge of good quality bowls looks like:

See how nice and smooth? This bowl will not cut you and it will last for generations.

Take a good look at the edge of bowls before making your purchase.

There is no cost difference, both of the bowls I’ve shown here had the same cost.
Amazingly only one of them is worth using, in the kitchen anyway.

You deserve better, there is no reason to  bring poor quality into your kitchen.

I’m doing my best to make sure you retain your Super powers, now go be Super!

Created for Baking with Mark on Posterous.com

Art with Bread? Yes indeed.

I bake creative breads for my kids and they get a big kick out of it each time.
Turtles and Crocodiles are two of the breads I make for them, both are fairly easy to shape.

Since Valentines in approaching I’ve decided to create a Blog post about Heart shaped breads.
I’m also going to illustrate something all Bread bakers eventually  embrace, ratios.

Ratios? Absolutely.
When you get an idea and want to bake some sort of special bread all you may need is to balance the ratio of ingredients.

The recipe I’m posting here isn’t from any book or from any of my own notes, all I did was work out the ratios as I baked these.

1) I wanted the bread to be soft.
2) This bread should have a slight sweetness to it but not with the flavor of actually being sweet like a pastry.

3) I’d like to see a nice caramel color once this bread is baked but not too crusty.

4) The crumb should be hardy but soft, not full of large holes.

Below are the ingredients and I’ve decided to bake this bread at 425 degrees F.
If you follow my blog you know I most often use a very high temperature.

I’ve got a simple rule: For Brownies the oven should be slow and low, flat bread should bask in an inferno.

This bread falls in the middle since we don’t want a crusty bread but we also want to keep some of the moisture.

Ingredients, in order of addition. (Never mix your salt and yeast together.)

1.5 Tablespoons Kosher salt.

1 Tablespoon sugar. (This is for the yeast, not for sweetness.)

1/3 cup Instant nonfat dry milk.

14 ounces (397g) AP flour

16 ounces (455g) Bread flour.

3.5 teaspoons Instant dry yeast. (In the flour, not the water.)

Mix all of those ingredients well then add:

1.75 ounces (50g) cold Butter. (Use good quality butter. It does not need to be salt free.)

Blend the butter, (that’s about 3.5 Tablespoons by the way), into the flour mixture with your fingers.
You can also use a Food processor for this step as it blends the butter without melting it.

(You don’t want to warm the butter too much or we’ll lose the benefit we’ll get from the butter/milk mixture.)

Cold Butter by the way is one of the secrets to perfect pastries.

Once the butter is blended in its time to form a well in the center of the bowl and pour in the warm water.

Add 2.25 cups of warm water, between 85-105 degrees F. (Not hot!)

Now it’s time to blend all of the ingredients.

Now that it has all come together you can use the outside of your fingers to press it into a ball, then roll it out onto your work surface.

Go wash the bowl and then cover the ball of dough for about 5 minutes. Let it rest while you go make some Tea and dance with a loved one.

The photo above is what you’ll find when you come back.

Now it’s time to knead the dough on your work surface, but just for a few minutes, don’t over knead this one.

Shown below is that dough ball above after kneading it for just one minute.

That’s perfect, don’t worry. Now it’s time to oil a container and then drop that dough ball in, oil the top of the dough then cover it and let it rise in a warm spot for 1.5 hours.

See that spray can below? Makes it easy to lightly oil the container and the top of the dough ball.

After one hour begin to preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

When 1.5 hours has past your dough should have more than doubled.

Now it’s time to weigh out the dough and divide it as needed.
I’ve decided to make two breads, one will be a whole heart the other will be constructed with multiple smaller hearts.

While you’re working with your dough always keep the remainder covered or it will dry out.
These dough balls are each 25.77 ounces (730g)
That’s more than we need for a large Heart bread. (Typical loaves are 16 ounces.)

Let’s start with the multiple heart’s Heart bread. This one is sort of like Monkey bread.
Just roll the dough out and cut heart shapes with a cookie cutter.

Notice how the first three hearts shape the main heart? All we have to do now is pile the other on.

(Don’t squish them down, just lay them onto the previous ones.)

Note: Use parchment paper to build your Heart.

Cover that pile of hearts and let it rise again, covered, for 15 minutes.

(Once that bakes it will pull apart like Monkey bread. Kids love that part.)

Once it rises again for 15 minutes it’s time to bake.

To get a nice bronze color I’ll bake this at 425 degrees for 15 minutes then take it out and brush Egg all over it. (The entire mixed egg, not just the white.)

Place it back in the oven and let it bake for an additional 7 minutes.

Now for the whole Heart.

This one is easy, just press the dough down on the parchment with the palms of your hands then with one hand in the center press the dough around your fingers.

For the bottom of that Heart just press the dough to a point.

Let this heart rise again for 15-20 minutes, just like the other did. If you do the other first the timing works out.

Once it has rested for 15 minutes or so brush the same Egg on this one, before we bake it.

We will get a nice deep bronze color by baking it the entire time with the Egg wash.

Bake this whole Heart for 23 minutes at 425 degrees.

Once they have baked let them cool for at least 15 minutes before turning your loved ones loose.

Now you have some fun bread to go with your chocolates and other delicacies.

The Heart bread with the multiple smaller hearts may look strange but I assure you everyone loves tearing the little hearts apart. Sort of like real life.

The larger whole Heart is simply delicious, you can serve that with just about any dinner and it will be a big hit.

Please let me know if you’re interested in seeing other Artful breads, they’re a blast to make, share and eat.

Now go have some fun and be Super!

Created for Baking with Mark on posterous.com

My Amazon eStore (Baking supplies)
http://astore.amazon.com/httpmsftwises-20

Kombucha, for your Health
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/kombucha-for-your-health

Getting started Baking
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/getting-started-baking

Stainless Steel bowls, a few tips
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/stainless-steel-bowls 

Your own Sourdough starter
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/your-own-sourdough-project

Maintaining your Sourdough starter
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/maintaining-your-sourdough

Delicious Sourdough Pizza
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/sourdough-pizza

Soft Delicious “Kid Friendly” Sourdough loafs
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/soft-delicious-kid-friendly-sourdough-loafs

Handmade Rigatoni
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/handmade-baked-rigatoni

Chocolate Sourdough Bread
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/sourdough-chocolate-bread

Sourdough Pie Crust (Busted!)
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/sourdough-pie-crust

Pita Bread
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/pita-bread

Old Fashioned Cannoli
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/nogallery-old-fashioned-cannoli

How to make your own Espresso Powder
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/espresso-powder

Stromboli
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/homemade-stromboli

King Arthur Bread book review plus a bread recipe
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/kaf-book-review-and-a-bread-recipe

Baker’s notes, a little more Flour
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/a-little-more-flour-or-water

Meat Pies made with ground Turkey
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/meat-pies-made-with-turkey

Pizza Wheels for Kids
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/pizza-wheels-for-kids

Moist Delicious Burger buns
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/moist-delicious-burger-buns

Artful Loving Heart shaped bread
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/loving-artful-bread

 *I’ll update this index as I add new Blog articles.

This is a tough one.
Not because Pita are hard to make but because I want to share a traditional method.
I may just do that in the near future but not today.

I’m part of an awesome group on Facebook; Artisan Bread Bakers
I had already promised several people that my next blog would be about traditional Pita when my friend Phil asked me to come up with a recipe for the group this next month.
The group, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69466903008 , does a BOM each month. *(Bread of the month)

So this isn’t exactly old fashioned, it’s modified for the way we bake and work with bread nowadays.

There is one secret to great Pita bread however and I’m going to go into some detail about that.
The secret is High heat. We’re going to bake these at 540 degrees F.
If you’re using metric and don’t know how hot that is it’s simple, turn your oven all the way up!

Mine will actually do 600 degrees but I’m baking these at 540 since everyone should be able to go that high.

But it’s more than just high heat, we need to provide a near perfect environment so the disks of dough will fill with steam and puff up without over-baking.

You’ve had fresh Pita that was perfectly baked but still moist, right? That’s what we’re shooting for.

Search Youtube for old videos of people making Pita and you’ll no doubt see holes in the ground with large stones that get very hot.
The disks of bread are tossed onto the hot stone, sometimes they are covered to trap the steam that is generated.
These stones are at least 800 degrees! Those Pita cook very quickly.
Sometimes the dough is stretched very thin, tossed from hand to hand, until it is so thin it will not puff but will cook in just seconds.

This is how I suggest converting your oven at home so it can be used to make the very best Pita.

One the bottom, in the photo below, notice there are 4 fire bricks and some BBQ rocks in the center.
The fire bricks are available in many construction supply shops and on-line. These are heavy bricks that retain the heat.
The BBQ rocks in the center bottom are to support the rack that the heavy bricks sit on.

The can lid is just there to protect the BBQ rocks. Nothing special about that, just a soup can lid. (Two actually, for strength.)

And this is the assembled oven with the remaining stones.
On the lower shelf is a large square Pizza stone. Get the largest you can fit in there, a small one just doesn’t offer much working space.

On the top shelf is a typical round Pizza stone. This stone isn’t used for baking, it instead creates our hot ceiling.

That oven setup will serve you well for all of your baking. When you broil remove that top stone first.

Notice also the spacing of everything. Try to allow circulation while providing your optimum stonework.

Now the recipe. . .

Ingredients: (In this order)

1 Tablespoon Kosher salt.

10.0 ounces Unbleached White Whole Wheat flour.

20.0 ounces Unbleached Bread flour.

1.5 Tablespoon Instant yeast.

1 Tablespoon pulverized Mahlep* (Pictured)

3 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive oil.

2 1/4 cups room temperature water.
(Don’t use tap water if it has chlorine in it, use bottled water or let the tap water sit out for a day or two.)

*Mahlep is traditional in Pita, but it’s optional if you can’t find any.

It’s not sold where I live, my good friend Penelope sent me the bottle in the photo above.

Mix all of the ingredients in the bowl until they look something like this:

Then with wet hands use the outside of your fingers and keep pressing down and turning the dough over until it can be grouped like this:

That took less than a minute. Nothing tough about that part.

Next turn it out onto your work area, cover it and go wash your bowl.
Yes, take a 5 minute break while that ball of dough goes through some changes.

Now that your bowl is clean leave your hands slightly wet and go knead that dough.

In a few minutes, you don’t have to go overboard with this dough, bring it to a nice tight ball and then put it in an oiled container to rise for 1.5 hours covered:

See how clean that work area is? If you’re not working on Marble please consider it. Dough does not stick to good marble at all.

During this time you need to heat your oven to 540 degrees F.

Allow at least one hour for this step.

Now I’m going to show you a few of my tricks for making this much easier.

On the bottom is a Super Peel. If you Bake any flat breads you need a Super Peel.
http://www.superpeel.com/

Without this you can bake at most 2 Pita at a time. With the Super Peel I’m baking 4 at a time.

That large red plastic box is what I use for the balls of dough once we weigh them out. They’ll rest in there for 15 minutes covered.

The cheap plastic cutting boards on top are what I use to stack the Pita while I’m rolling them out. They rest, covered by each other.

This is what the dough balls look like once I weigh them out and put them in the red box to rest for 15 minutes:

In the bottom left corner is the leftover dough, which was 1.1 ounces. I baked that one first and it made the cutest little Pita.

Once they rest it’s time to roll them out:

Then I stack them on top of each other until I’ve stacked 8 of them:

That’s a very cheap setup that works perfectly for this.

You want these to rest for about 5 minutes, which they do by the time you roll 8 of them out.
Just flip the pile over and start baking from the bottom, the first one you rolled out.

This is the Super Peel loaded:

And this is the way it delivers them, perfectly:

I use a metal Peel to remove the Pita.

Then I stack them on a Bamboo towel that is sitting on a cooling rack:

Just keep flipping the towel back over the pile as you bake, put the hot ones on top, and so on.

I used to use Aluminum foil for this part but we’re all doing our part to be Green nowadays, right? (I no longer waste anything.)

You noticed that I forgot to mention how long they baked, right?

If you cranked your oven up high they will only take 3 minutes, no more than 4.

If you baked them at a lower temp you will need to watch them and bake them for a few minutes longer.

They will bake best at a very high heat. Look, even the little one came out perfect. (Center of photo above.)

The total weight of the dough before dividing it was 50.34 ounces. (1428g)

Each Pita is 2.7 ounces, with the cute little leftover one being 1.1 ounces.

If you want a slightly larger Pita go with 3.0 ounces, but 2.7 ounces is right on the money.

Now it’s your turn, go do a better job, and have fun.

Created for Baking with Mark on Posterous.com

Here we go…

This was the number one request I received last year, how do I make my old fashioned cannoli.

First off, yesterday I blogged about how to make homemade Ricotta cheese and use it for the Cannoli filling:
http://bakingwithmark.posterous.com/homemade-ricotta-and-cannoli-filling

Today we make the Cannoli shells!

Let me say, you have to be in the mood. This isn’t easy, but it is enjoyable, especially if you get to see your friends enjoying what you have made.

People will stalk you once they’ve had Cannoli made fresh.

I also want to mention that my way is not the only way. There are thousands of methods and ingredients.

Some Cannoli are even made as Ice-cream treats for children.

The recipes vary as well, some use cocoa in the shell mixture, some use Lard in the filling and are even fried in it.

I don’t use Lard for anything and I don’t use cocoa in the mixture for the shells but I’ll cover that in a minute.

As we begin please keep in mind that I’ve been making these for a long time and this is my own recipe.

I’m willing to share all that I’ve learned about making the very best Cannoli.

Let’s make the dough for the shells. . .

This recipe makes 2 dozen shells, if you need less just cut this recipe in half.

In one bowl mix the following:

16.75 ounces AP flour

4 Tablespoons Sugar

2 Teaspoons Kosher salt

4 Tablespoons butter. (Use good butter and make sure it’s cold.)

In another bowl mix:

2 Eggs

½ cup Marsala wine. (Most grocery stores carry Marsala)

Blend the cold butter with the flour mixture by squeezing it between your fingers inside the flour.

You can also use a Food processor to blend the butter. Make sure it stays cold, treat this like a Pie crust or pastry.

Next mix the Marsala and Eggs with a fork, then dump this mixture in with the blended flour and butter.

Use the same fork to blend all of the ingredients in the final bowl.

Now use your hands and compress the dough into a ball, sort of like working with clay.

You don’t want to knead this, just “heal” it together.

Now get our your plastic wrap and tightly wrap this ball then place it in the fridge for at least an hour.
(You can get by with 30 minutes but it will be much easier to shape if you allow it to chill for a full hour.)

This is what I’m going to use to roll out the dough once it has chilled:

You don’t have to use a Pasta machine but it without a doubt makes the very best Cannoli shells.
If you have an Atlas Marcato, like mine, the setting we’ll be using is #5.
Making the Cannoli shells too thin will cause them to blow apart in the hot oil.

If you don’t have a Pasta machine you can of course use a roller.

Once we roll out the dough we need to cut shapes for our shells.

Shown below is the pattern I’ve made, which I believe to be the perfect shape and size:

Mine is basically a wide oval, 4” x 5”.

The shells will be 5” long and the 4” width will be used for the wrap and closure.

Cannoli shells are traditionally shaped according to how many bites you are providing the customer/guest.

You want to provide at least three bites.

Shown below you can see the two most common shell shapes and my chubby oval:

In the back is a 4” circle, in the center a 4” square and then my chubby oval, which works better than both of those other shapes.

Just use a small knife and trace around your pattern, it only takes a second to cut these shapes out.

This is what they look like when they’re wrapped:

By the way, notice that bowl of Egg whites?

You want to seal the closing edge with Egg white or these will blow open in the hot oil.

Notice the chubby oval of mine offers a slightly longer closing edge. This makes a big difference in that hot oil.

The center Cannoli form is the one made with the 4” square. I don’t like this shape because this shape does not fry well, the edges tend to curl too much.

Let’s talk about those forms. You can buy Cannoli forms at specialty shops or do like I do and order them from Amazon.com

Shown below you can see the old method and the new:

Wooden dowels like these work perfectly fine, but the metal Cannoli forms are world’s better.
Those wood dowels have been in hot oil many times, they last for a very long time.

I now prefer the metal forms but it’s up to you.

When you roll out the dough try to work with just the amount you can fry at one time.

I’ve got 8 forms so I roll out 8 at a time, fry 3-4 at a time, then roll out some more dough, by that time the forms have cooled again.

Important: Keep the dough covered, keep the formed dough covered and keep the cold dough in the fridge while you work with the previous dough.

Just take the dough out of the fridge and cut a section off to work with, then put the covered dough back in the fridge to keep cool.

This is the way I layout the Deep fryer and the incoming, covered, shells.
To the right of the Deep fryer I use a cookie sheet with paper towels on it and an upside down cooling rack on the top of that.

That layout allows me to work efficiently and safely.

The temperature I find to be perfect for Cannoli shells is 360 degrees F.
If you let the oil get much hotter than that you will blow holes in the dough and you can even cause the shells to have a burnt flavor.

By the way, remember those three shapes? This is what happened to them, only my chubby oval survived the initial plunge:

On the left is the square, see the corner problem I mentioned?

In the center is the 4” circle, which simply popped off the metal form.

And on the right my oval. All three of these cooked together at the same time.

This is how you should take the shells out of the hot oil, allowing them to drain back into the pan:

See how they are resting on the edge of the cookie sheet? This allows the oil to drain back out of the forms as they cool.

OK, so how long should they stay in the hot oil? At least a minute, no more than two.

And what type of oil should you use? Honestly I like using Peanut oil but for these I used Vegetable oil. Try several types and see which oil you prefer.

What if you don’t have a Deep fryer? You can use a large cooking pot but be careful, it’s very hard to regulate the temperature and it can be dangerous.

OK, we’ve rolled out the dough, cut the shapes:

See that container in the back? I fry the leftover cuttings and the kids gobble them up. They make a fun snack.

Do you like chocolate shells? Remember we didn’t put any cocoa into the dough mixture, but you can still make a nice chocolate shell from these if you want.

All you need is a plastic bag and some cocoa powder:

Once you fill that shell and drizzle powdered sugar on it you’ll have a perfect Chocolate shell.

My Cannoli however do not use cocoa, I prefer the deep golden color you’ll see in the final photo.

What we need next is:

Powdered sugar
More of our Chocolate sliver shavings
Our homemade Ricotta filling

Many people use a pastry bag to fill the Cannoli. All you need is a spoon like the one above.
Just feed the filling into the shells, like feeding a baby. Keep feeding the filling into one end and it will work all the way to the other end, nice and tight.

Then take the filled Cannoli and jab each end into the slivered chocolate so it sticks to the ends.

Finally sprinkle powdered sugar on the top.

And your Cannoli should end up looking something like this:

It’s traditional to fill the shells right before they are served. If you fill them too far in advance they will get soft.

Old fashioned Cannoli need to have a nice crisp shell, a creamy but not watery filling and enriched with chocolate surprises throughout.

If I missed any details feel free to mention whatever more you’d like to know in the comments below.

This is a big project, making the Ricotta cheese, the filling, shaping the chocolate, making the shells and filling the Cannoli, but tell me, isn’t it worth it in the end?

One last note. . .Be very careful when you take the forms out of the hot oil.

Oil can run out of the tubes and at 360 degrees that is a very bad thing.

One of the things I like about the type of Deep fryer I use is the large basket allows you to tilt the forms and allow the oil to drain out, back into the pot:

That is a very good feature for any Cannoli Chef. Be careful, hot oil is very dangerous.

You can do this, and I’ll bet you can do it even better.

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You’re right! This blog is “Baking with Mark”. . .
So why the heck am I doing a Blog post about Ricotta and Cannoli filling?

Simple answer: I aim to please.

There are two things I get the most requests for, my Old Fashioned Cannoli and my handmade Pasta.

So I’m going to deviate from the norm for a bit and do a series on each of those topics.

The first is How to make your own Ricotta Cheese, and how to make my Cannoli filling.

Yes, mine. There are many ways to make Cannoli filling, this is one I’ve been making for a long time and everyone loves it.

You may already realize that Ricotta is Italian for “recooked”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricotta

The way we are going to make this is the way it’s possible in the U.S.
Sadly our FDA has a leash around our necks that prevents us from making the same Ricotta that can be made in many other countries.

The first thing we need is the highest fat Whole milk that’s available to you.
Don’t start yelling at me just yet, I don’t use Whole milk for anything else and we don’t drink it in our house.
If I could make Ricotta like we’ll make here with skim milk I would.
It’s actually possible but as you’ll see even with a Whole milk high in fat this is still a major undertaking.

OK, so if it’s not easy why do we even want to make it ourselves?
Good question.

The answer is, most of the Ricotta on the market is full of fillers and in our Old fashioned Cannoli we want good Ricotta.

It’s entirely “worth it” to make your own for something like Cannoli filling.

Let’s get going. . .

First thing we need is Whole milk.
One of the Grocery stores I shop at carries this milk, for baking:

This is good stuff but I couldn’t possible drink it, I’ve only had skim milk for the past 20 years or so.

That Stainless Stock pot is what I’m going to pour it into:

It’s all in there.

Now let’s heat that milk, slowly.

I’m using an electric range and the glass top is set to the middle position.
We don’t want to scald the milk, not even a little.
We don’t want it to boil, not even once.

Now add in one teaspoon of table salt. Stir it with the heating milk.

Keep stirring this pot, at least once each 60 seconds.

Yes I know this gets tedious, I also don’t care for the smell of milk cooking but I know some people love it.

We’re going to make the best ever Cannoli filling with this so let’s stick with it.

For stirring the milk I use my old wooden flat spoons:

Just keep stirring until the milk gets hot enough to be considered too hot to touch but not yet boiling. Simmering but a little hotter.

Once the milk is hot pour in about 3-4 tablespoons of Lemon juice. Not too much, just enough to cause the hot milk to start coagulating.
Rennet is most often used for this process but we’re not adding anything else to this, just the initial table salt and then the Lemon juice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rennet

Keep stirring but now watch for lumps.

While the clumps are forming get your strainer ready.
What I do is place a metal colander inside a glass bowl and then cheesecloth doubled over into the colander.
This is where we’re going to place the lumps we start collecting soon:

Once the milk begins to coagulate you need to use any sort of skimmer to collect the lumps that are forming, while you still keep the pot stirred.

After about 10 minutes of this you should collect about 2 cups from the full gallon we started with:

Once you have collected all the lumps that the milk is going to give let the collected mass cool down a bit and then squeeze the cheesecloth like this to wring it out:

This is what the collected Ricotta will look like when you release it from the cheesecloth:

Note: The liquid that is left over is good for baking if you use it fresh, otherwise pour it on the roots of your plants or trees outside.
It’s still too nutritious to just pour down the drain, at least let the plants, trees or animals have it.

That’s it, you’ve made Ricotta. Now get it into the fridge quick.

I always place a layer of plastic wrap up against the Ricotta and push out as much air as I can before placing this in the fridge.

Ready to make the Cannoli filling now?

Good, let’s start. . .

We’re going to need our homemade Ricotta, sugar, a good baking chocolate and pure vanilla.

Please don’t use imitation vanilla in this. That would be a crime.

See that chocolate I’m using? That is what I’ve been using for a long time and the feedback I get proves it’s perfect for this.
The label says “Sweet” but that chocolate perfectly matches the Ricotta.

How much sugar? I use the 1/3 rule.
Measure how much Ricotta you are using and add one third that volume in sugar.

I’m using 1.5 cups of Ricotta and 1/3 cup of sugar.

How much vanilla? That’s flexible because you can add a little and just add flavor or add a lot and change the consistency of the filling.
Some people like a lot of vanilla but for my Old fashioned Cannoli I add 1 teaspoon of vanilla for each 2 cups of Ricotta.
Since this is 1.5 cups of Ricotta I’m still going to use 1 teaspoon of vanilla, it’s not that important. Just experiment.

Now we need to chip the chocolate. You may be asking; Seriously? Yes indeed.

You can use chocolate chips in your Cannoli filling but to do this the Old fashioned way we’re going to chip slivers of chocolate.

The way you do that is to hold one point of the knife down on the cutting board and with your other hand rake against the edge of the chocolate bar.

And this is what your slivers of chocolate will look like:

How much chocolate? I normally match the amount of sugar being used:

Too much chocolate doesn’t seem possible but it really is, the consistency of the filling will be sacrificed.

Next mix in the Ricotta and then the Vanilla.

Transfer the filling to a clean container and put it in the fridge immediately.

You should always make your filling in advance, the filling will go through some changes that take at least a few hours.

In the next blog post I’ll be making the Old fashioned Cannoli.
See you there.

Created for Baking with Mark on Posterous.com

Espresso Powder? Really?  Yes!!

Many of you already use it in your baked goods.
Some of you already make your own. Awesome.

For those who don’t here’s how it’s done.

Note: Yes you can buy Espresso Powder, but why not make it if you can?

OK, some of you are already asking why you even need any Espresso Powder.

Fair enough. . .Before I get into how to make your own let’s talk about why you need to keep some in your pantry.

1) Did you see my Chocolate Sourdough Bread recipe last year? It’s here on this blog.
That’s not something you make every day but it is an awesome recipe for those special days.
For example, instead of a loaf of bread form 3.0 ounce balls with it, bake them, cut the tops off and hollow out the inside, then fill with White bean Chicken stew.
Oh my gosh that’s delicious!

Alright, you’re following me so far, maybe even biting. . .

Thing is a small amount of Espresso Powder takes that recipe to a whole different level of perfection.
The flavors and aroma from the Sourdough and Chocolate are enhanced by the Espresso Powder.

2) Brownies. Yes, brownies. Anyone who uses Espresso Powder in baking will no doubt mention brownies.

I’m not a big fan of brownies but I do bake them a lot and any of my scratch-made recipes are so much better with a bit of Espresso Powder.

The proof? Even children love brownies better when they are made with Espresso Powder.

Are we drugging the kids? No, there’s no chance caffeine can survive the process.

3) Cookies. Duh, if it makes brownies better it can surely make chocolate cookies taste better.

Here’s the thing…Espresso Powder has the ability to enhance Chocolate in baked goods without making things richer.

So how do we make it?

First thing we need is Espresso Grounds:

If you don’t drink Espresso just ask a friend to save their leftover grounds for you.

Next thing is to spread the grounds out onto a sheet pan:

Don’t use your hand, use something like the Pastry blade in the photo above to spread them out.

Now bake the Espresso grounds in the oven at a low temp for about an hour.

Tip: I do this once the oven has been used for something like baking bread.
You don’t want to toast the grounds, just dry them out until they’re “crunchy”.

Well, they don’t really get crunchy but at least you get the idea.

Once they bake and have cooled down it’s time to pulverize them in one of those cheap spinning blade grinders:

See how fine those grounds are now?

Once you do this they’ll keep forever in an airtight container.

You now have Espresso Powder, for any recipe that calls for it, or anything awesome you might have up your sleeve.

Now go do something amazing.
  All the best,
   Mark

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I’m writing this on New Year’s eve 2010.
As I create this blog post my mind isn’t on the new year, it’s entirely focused on providing this step-by-step blog post.

(Let’s pretend for a second that I’m talking to you and you are responding…)
What’s special about this one? Stromboli is great but come on, anyone can use a search engine and find good Stromboli recipes.
That’s true. This however is going to include my own “perfected” recipe for the dough, the sauce and the ground Turkey filling.

Important: This dough recipe of mine is very flexible.
When you see a recipe that calls for a “store bought” Pizza dough you can use this.
If you want a chewy, but not overly chewy, dough use this one.

(Given the chance I’d like to take on the Food Network Chefs with this one. It’s that good.)

We’re making Stromboli but as you’ll see I also made a good sized Pizza and a large Calzone.

Let’s get started. . .

In your bowl mix the following dry ingredients:

(Add them in this order so Salt and Yeast do not meet each other.)

2 1/4 Teaspoons Kosher salt.

1 Tablespoon Sugar (If you’re trying to cut back on sugar use Honey instead.)

Note: The Sugar/Honey isn’t for sweetness, it’s for the yeast/dough production.

6 Tablespoons Instant nonfat Dry Milk.

14 ounces All Purpose flour.

14 ounces Bread Flour. Unbleached.

2 1/4 Teaspoons Instant Yeast. (One packet)

Blend those dry ingredients then make a well in the center of the mixture and pour in:

4 ounces Olive Oil. Virgin or Extra Virgin, don’t skimp.

Next pour in:

2 cups warm water. (115 degrees F)

*If your water is too warm it will kill the yeast, too cold and it will delay the rising.

Mix all of the ingredients in the bowl until they look like this:

Are you using one of these Dough hooks yet?

It’s all I need for any type of mixing, I even pulverize Butternut Squash with that one. Love it.

If not you can get one from King Arthur Flour’s website, or from my Amazon e-store:

http://astore.amazon.com/httpmsftwises-20

Once your ingredients are mixed, like the photo above, press the mixture down with your curled fingers, like this:

Important: You do not need to add any additional flour.

If the dough sticks to your hand run it under water and try again with your hand slightly wet.

Press down with your curled fingers until the dough resembles a pancake, then flip it over and do it again.

Once you have flattened the dough from both sides and it has picked up all the loose pieces in the bowl…
Flip the dough in half, while still in the bowl, then turn it over and flatten it out then flip it in half again.

Do this for about a minute and it should look like this:

We’ve just kneaded the dough in the bowl with minimal effort and absolutely no mess.

Now turn it out onto your work surface and go wash the bowl.

Go wash the bowl? Yes, don’t be lazy about this, always wash your equipment before things dry onto it.

Doing this with your bowl now will make it much easier.

The 5 minutes you’re away will be beneficial because the dough has relaxed and the yeast it doing its job.

Now knead your dough on the work surface for a minute or two.
Don’t add any flour or water.

I highly recommend working on Marble. Notice in the photo below there is no mess and the dough is not sticking.

The dough is now ready to place in a covered container and allowed to rise for at least 1.5 hours.

See that can of spray Olive oil? That’s a great tip, use it to spray the container and then once the dough is placed you spray the top of the dough.

Spraying the dough with Olive oil will keep the outside from drying and it will prevent the dough from sticking to the container.

During the 1.5 hours the dough is rising you need to heat your oven to 500 degrees F.
We’re going to make a much better, moister, Stromboli by using high heat.

In a brick oven this Stromboli would be baking at around 800 degrees F.

While the dough is rising and the oven is heating (Takes at least one hour for an electric oven.) let’s make the fillings.

There are two ways you can go about this.

If you’re in a hurry, say for example you want to bake this after a hard days work, I recommend these conveniences:

You can certainly use Pizza sauce but that Marinara will taste fresher, not so heavy.
Those packages of Artisan Mozzarella and Provolone are absolutely perfect for Stromboli.

If however you have time and want to join me in making the sauce fresh I recommend this group:

Fresh tomatoes, fresh garlic, Extra Virgin Olive oil and a little help from a handheld food mill.

I had a larger one but gave it away because the one in the photo above is perfect for everything in the kitchen.

For this sauce I rough-cut about 3 cups of tomatoes and once I ran them through the mill I put them in a hot pot treated with Olive oil.

While the tomatoes were boiling down I finely chopped two cloves of garlic and added it to the pot.

Next I added the juice from ½ fresh lemon and the zest from that same half.

Add some additional Olive oil to the pot now, at least 2 Tablespoons.

Now let it boil down for a bit then add in your salt, pepper and some fresh Parsley.

While the sauce is boiling down its time to brown the meat in another pot:

Notice I’m also browning onions at the same time.

Doing it this way allows the juices to blend before you mix the onions into the meat.

I’m using ground Turkey for this but you can fill your Stromboli with whatever you have a taste for.

Make sure you don’t add too many flavors to the meat, you want to match it to the flavors of the cheeses you’ll be adding.

For this meat mixture I browned the Turkey meat with Olive oil, then browed the onions in the center of the pot.

We’ve already used plenty of salt in the dough and sauce and we used lemon in the sauce so the meat really doesn’t need any.

Absolute perfection in baking is this: How to salt properly.

OK, the meat is ready let’s get back to that boiling sauce….Mmmm its smelling great about now.

You don’t have to boil the sauce all the way down to the consistency that you want for the Stromboli, you can just drain off the extra water like this:

OK, our dough is ready let’s get it out of the container, knock it down a bit, ball it then weight it:

Look at that team. Healthy Turkey meat filling on the left, fresh sauce on the right and in the center our champ, 47 ounces of Pizza dough.

Pizza, Calzone, Stromboli…that dough can do.

For our Stromboli let’s cut off 14 ounces:

See those cheap food scissors? I got those for about 2 dollars and they are perfect for cutting dough. You do not need to spend a lot of money.

Now place the rest of the dough back into the container and then flatten out your 14 ounces of dough:

Don’t have one of those wood French rolling pins? Get one, they’re the best thing for this type of dough.

Just roll that pin under your palms, working from the dough center out, until it’s longer than it is wide and fairly flat.

As you’re adding the fillings be careful to keep the edge of the dough clean. Do not allow any oil to drip on the edges.

Now it’s time to add the sauce:

It does not need to be perfectly spread, we’re going to roll this up soon and things will squish into place.

Once the sauce is spread it’s time to add the meat:

If you want to toss in some Pine nuts now is the time.

Now let’s add the cheeses then fold up the first corners so we can begin to roll it up:

Each time you fold that first part over seal down the top edges to keep the sauce from leaking out. Just keep rolling then lift the final section and seal it.

Tip: Don’t keep rolling until the end, you will squeeze the sauce out and it will leak while baking.

When you get to the final fold lift that far edge towards you to keep the sauce contained.

Now place the sealed Stromboli on parchment paper and coat the top with Olive oil, then any spices you want to add:

Now it’s time to bake. Place it in your hot 500 degree F. oven, preferably onto a Pizza stone, and bake it for 8 minutes.

Before I post the final photo I’m going to share one more tip.

If you’re having a hard time getting the leftover dough out of your cleaning tools get one of these new sponges, they work great with dough:

They’re made by the Scrubbing Bubbles guys and gosh they work great for hand washing your stuff.

OK, here’s the final photo. From that 47 ounces I made two Stromboli, a large Calzone and one 12” Pizza:

Not bad for a few bucks, a couple of hours and a little elbow grease.

You can do this. Experiment and you can do even better!

Happy New Year. God’s blessings.

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