Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Pizza Heaven, Devil's Food & Tea That Tastes Like Hell

A Slice of Heaven
We learned to make fresh pizza dough based on a recipe by Wolfgang Puck. We each got to make individual pizzas using 7 ounces of the dough that we made (and proofed) the day before. We were shown how to roll the dough into a ball and let it rest in order for the dough to rise for a little while. Then we rolled it out and some of us docked (perforate with a spiked roller) the dough, but chef said it wasn't required for the small pizzas. Then we got to top them with sauce, cheese and a small selection of toppings, including fresh basil, zucchini, onion and pepperoni. We were all thrilled that we got to eat a real lunch today and didn't have to survive on snacks until after class.

Tea with the Devil's Food
Wednesday night, CAA is hosting a seminar about tea and coffee, so we planned to make some tea-infused desserts. The first dessert was Devil's Food Cupcakes infused with very fragrant loose-leaf Vanilla Ceylon tea. The tea was infused by heating it with the milk that is part of the cake recipe (or formula, as chefs call it). If you do this, you must re-measure the infused milk after you strain and press it from the raw tea leaves because you will lose some of the liquid to the leaves. If you don't do this, your cake might end up a bit dry so be sure to add back the missing milk. The final result was a subtle hint of tea that adds a nice twist to traditional Devil's Food.

Hell has a Flavor
Next, we set up for the second tea-infused dessert — a Pound Cake — that we will make tomorrow. For this cake, we decided to use Lung Ching Dragonwell Green Tea to infuse with the milk. I've never tried this particular kind of green tea, but it's safe to say that I'm not a fan. From what I've read about it online, it's supposed to be a mellow, earthy, mildly sweet tea. Perhaps we had a rancid batch or something, but ours had a horribly bitter, spinach-like taste. We are going to go ahead and use it in the Pound Cake, but we will cut it in half and maybe add some honey to mask the bitterness. Hopefully, it will blend in with the other cake ingredients and take it down to a more palatable flavor that won't result in people making faces and desperately trying to wash out the lingering bitter taste. I guess we'll find out tomorrow!

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