TGA- Day Four. Pizza and Bagels!

Posted: March 12, 2011 | Author: Alyssa | Filed under: Alyssa, The Great Adventure | No Comments »

I might have been a bad girlfriend today…I texted boy to tell him that we were making pizza and bagels today and as I pressed send,  it occurred to me that those are two of his favorite things. I might as well have told him we were brewing beer and making hot wings.  My bad…

Anyway.  Today was a pretty good day.  We started out by making our pizza dough and while that was rising we  made our bagel dough and ran to the grocery store to get our pizza toppings.  Turns out taking 8 teenagers to the grocery store is a bit crazier than you might imagine.  Here are the highlights: 1. Broken jar of pasta sauce.  2. Kids calling me mommy and asking for ridiculous things.  3.  Strange looks from the women who work there.  4.  A three minute conversation about why mini pepperoni might not be a good idea.

Once we got back from the store we punched the dough, and cut it into two pieces.  While the dough was resting, we punched down the bagel dough and shaped it (into a bagel shape, for those of you who aren’t following closely).  We set those to rise and got to work on our pizzas.  Rolling out the dough was a challenge for some, but that is to be expected.  Its hard to roll dough out evenly when you aren’t used to it, and the dough was pretty elastic.  I think some of the kids are starting to realize just how much patience baking takes sometimes.  Once the dough was rolled out, we topped it and baked it.  Some of the kids were a little over zealous with their toppings, but I was impressed that they listened to me and none of them went TOO crazy and ended up with a structurally unsound pizza. 

After lunch (aka watching the kids stuff themselves with pizza and try to pass out on the floor), we went to work on the bagels.  Some of them (all of them)  had a little too much time to rise so a couple of the kids re shaped them and made them smaller while I boiled them.    We finished cleaning up while they were baking and by the time they came out of the oven it was time to go, but I set them aside for breakfast the next day…they look pretty good!

Pizza: 

1-1/2 C warm water

2-1/4 tsp (one .25 oz envelope) of active dry yeast

4-1/2 to 5 C flour

1-1/2 tsp salt

Mix together the water sugar and yeast and let sit at least 5 minutes until it is foamy, then add the flour and salt and mix until dough forms.  Knead on a floured surface until the dough is smooth and stretches like elastic.  It shouldn’t be sticky at all.  Put it ina greased bowl and let it rise for about an hour.  Punch it down and cut it into 2 or 3 equal pieces (depending on how big/thin you want your crust) and cover it  loosely with plastic wrap to let it rest for about 30-60 minutes.  Roll out, top and bake at 400 for about 15-20 minutes.  In order to prevent sticking, you can coat the baking sheet in yellow corn meal. 

Bagels:

2 cups warm water

1/2 oz (2 envelopes, or 4-1/2 tsp) of yeast

3Tbsp sugar

5-6 C flour

2 tsp salt

This is basically the same process as the pizza dough:  let yeast, water, sugar get foamy and mix in dry ingredients. Knead,  let rise to double, punch down, shape and let rise again.  When its time to bake set the oven to 400.  In a large pot bring about 12 cups of water to a boil with 1 Tbsp sugar.  Boil the bagels for about 30 seconds on each side before you put them on a greased (or cornmealed*) cookie sheet.  Bake for 5 minutes, flip them and then bake them for another 30 minutes.  Surprisingly these were easier than I expected, and they came out pretty well. 

All in all a good day in the kitchen.  Stay tuned for more adventures!

*if “facebooked” is a word then I can use “cornmealed”…so there