Homemade pizza

One of my all-time favorites pizzas is the Hula Hula at Spinoza's near Dayton, OH. The thing I love the best about that pizza is the crunchy macadamia nuts on top. I decided to try my hand at re-creating it (kind of).

I used a bread machine pizza dough recipe from Mom on Timeout. Her recipe gives both a one pizza and two pizza option. Below I am just sharing the recipe for the one pizza option.

 

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 T butter, softened
1 T sugar
1 t yeast
1 t salt
1/2 cup plus 2 T water (105 to 110 degrees)

Directions
Add all ingredients into your bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Make sure the water is warm enough to proof the yeast.

Turn your bread machine to the dough setting and let it do its thing. After a couple of minutes check on your dough to make sure it is not too wet or too dry. You can add water or flour a teaspoon at a time if your dough is too dry or too wet.

After the bread machine is done, dump the dough onto a lightly floured surface and work it until you have your desired shape. It was hard for me to make it perfectly circular and that's OK!

If using a pizza stone, dust with cornmeal. If using a another type of pan, you make want to grease it a little, too. Make up your pizza and bake at 425 degrees for 18 to 25 minutes. 

 

For my pizza, I started with Newman's Own marinara sauce. For the cheese, I used mozzarella and cheddar; I'm not exactly sure how much of each I ended up with. Just eyeball it to your desired cheese level. Then I spread freshly cut pineapple and freshly cut tomatoes (that we grew in our backyard!) and slightly chopped macadamia nuts. It was so delicious!

Bread Machine: Peanut Butter Bread

I recently tried another new bread recipe from the good ol' Betty Crocker Bread Machine Cookbook. This time I made Peanut Butter Bread.

My loaf turned out kind of misshapen, but still tasted good. I  used it to make Chocolate French Toast. It was a good combination. But the bread is just as tasty toasted with a bit of Nutella on top. Mmmm!

This recipe is for either a 1 lb loaf or 1.5 lb loaf. I didn't realize that when I put the ingredients in and only put ingredients in for a 1 lb loaf at first. My bread machine does not have a 1 lb option. So I had to put more of each ingredient in to make a 1.5 lb loaf. This is probably why (or part of the reason why) my loaf turned out looking funny.

Ingredients
1 lb loaf
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 cups bread flour
1 T packed brown sugar
3/4 t salt
1 1/4 t yeast

1.5 lb loaf
1 cup plus 1 T water
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups bread flour
3 T packed brown sugar
1 t salt
2 t yeast

Measure carefully, placing all ingredients in bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.

Select Sweet or Basic/White cycle. Use Light or Medium crust color.

Bread Machine: Vanilla Sour Cream Bread

I have not posted a bread recipe in a while. With the move, homemade bread was on the back burner (not literally, of course). :)

My most recent loaf was a Vanilla Sour Cream Bread from the Betty Crocker bread cookbook. I chose this specifically to make French Toast with it. It was very yummy as French Toast and plain.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lb loaf
1/2 cup water
1 T vanilla (seems like a lot to me, but it gave a good vanilla flavor)
1/3 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 T butter, softened
3 cups bread flour
2 T sugar
1 1/4 t salt
2 t yeast

2 lb loaf
2/3 cup water
1 1/2 T vanilla
1/3 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 T butter, softened
4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 t salt
2 t yeast

Measure carefully, placing all ingredients in bread machine plan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.

Select Sweet or Basic/White cycle. Use Light crust color. Do not use delay cycles.

Bread Machine: Caramel Apple Pecan Bread

I apologize in advance, but I do not have any pictures to share.

We decided to make some bread specifically to use for French toast. I gave Charles a few options from the Betty Crocker bread machine cookbook and he chose Caramel Apple Pecan Bread. I have to say he made an excellent choice.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb loaf
1 cup water (of course we had to add a little extra because it is so dry here)
2 Tablespoons butter, softened
3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup chopped unpeeled apple (like a Granny Smith)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans (it says toasted, but we didn't toast ours)

2 lb loaf
1 1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons butter
4 cups bread flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast
2/3 cup chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Place all ingredients, except apple and pecans, in bread machine pan in order recommended by manufacturer. Add apple and pecans at the Raisin/Nut signal.

Select Sweet or Basic/White cycle. Light crust color. Do not use delay option.

I used the Betty Crocker Big Red recipe for french toast. I am a recipe follower, but french toast batter can usually be done without one. I did add cinnamon to the batter.