Adventures in Wood-Fired-Pizza-Making

A couple weeks ago we had some stellar weather here in Southwest Michigan. To celebrate that and to thank the many people at Big C Lumber who provided the materials for building my parents' new house, my dad and I collaborated on an afternoon of making pizzas in the wood-fired oven out on the new screen porch. All in all, we made 8 pizzas using combinations of the following laundry list of toppings: Roma tomatoes, pineapple chunks, Canadian bacon, Italian sausage, shredded chicken, purple and yellow fingerling potatoes, basil, sauteed yellow peppers and onions, asparagus, eggs, fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella, blue cheese and a 4-cheese blend.

No recipe and little talk here--the photos speak for themselves.

Pizza Master Karl creating a Pizza Margherita

Fine ingredients

Hot, hot, hot!

Fingerling potatoes, asparagus, Canadian bacon

Italian sausage, shredded chicken, sauteed yellow peppers and onions

My creation: fingerling potatoes, blue cheese, fresh greens

The spot!

Jacques Torres's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Please note, straight from the beginning, you’ll need to let this dough rest for AT LEAST 24 hours before baking. Your patience will pay off!

Everyone seems to have a set of characteristics that embody their perfect chocolate chip cookie – whether they like them chewy or crispy or with or without nuts. Well, I say throw all your preconceived notions of what a chocolate chip cookie should be and go ahead and make this recipe. The secrets? I think it boils down to: lots of butter, brown and granulated sugar, salt and resting time. Salt is now the “secret” of most baked goods that come out of my kitchen.

The recipe calls for both cake (or pastry) flour and bread flour, but all-purpose flour splits the difference on protein content between the two of them, so I’m certain these would still turn out terrific with what you are most likely to have on hand. I was unaware of the bread flour in the pantry, so the recipe I made was a mix of cake flour and all-purpose flour and they turned out excellent. And if you have it or can get your hands on it, these cookies do well with high-quality bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate. I won’t lie – used 16 ounces of grocery store semi-sweet chocolate chips and 4 ounces of chopped unsweetened chocolate to the complaint of no one. All in all, the recipe is written as I made it, but check out the source for Jacque’s “perfect” way to make ‘em.

I made these with a small cookie scoop – #50, about the size of a good, rounded tablespoon – and it made about 70 cookies (!). If you decide to make them a little bigger, keep the oven at the same temperature, but increase the time by a couple minutes. As always, just keep an eye on them and when in doubt, trust your nose. Once the smell overwhelms your kitchen, they’re done.