SeeingEyeBlog

It’s Thanksgiving and it is time for the second annual turkey bake in my brick oven. I started up the oven fire at 9am, and we should have a good baking environment by 11:30. We plan to eat around 1pm, which will be perfect. Our Turkey is 21 pounds, which usually takes about 5 hours to cook, but with the magical oven outside, it only takes 2.

Last year, with a 21 lb. turkey for cooking for two hours, the white and dark meat were cooked properly, and both moist. Usually it is very difficult to get them both done right. One is either dry or undercooked.

This year we hope to reprise the perfect turkey scenario.

Fast-forward three hours….well, my mom panicked and made me put the turkey into the oven too early. That is, the fire hadn’t been heating the oven long enough, and the heat hadn’t saturated the bricks. It wasn’t hot enough to sustain the heat for the two-hour cooking time, and we ended up having to finish the cooking in the indoor conventional oven.

We’ll have to wail until next year to try again. Or maybe we’ll make turkey for Christmas. Regardless, next time I’ll wake up a little earlier to start the oven fire.

The Encyclopizza has a lot of information on everything having to do with pizza. Anyone who takes pizza seriously should take a look.

I’m mining the Encyclopizza for insights on how to achieve a soft crust in my dough formulation.

The crust was a little hard for my taste, but it tasted great. The preparation was less intensive than I thought it would be, so I’m happy.

I was also using a crappy gas oven (my brick oven is in San Diego). The oven here in LA has a bad temperature dial, so there’s never a way to tell what temperature it’s set to. Next time I’ll use the brick oven and hope for a softer crust.

I’ve built a brick oven, experienced the increase in flavor of everything that comes out of it, and now I’m trying my hand at creating the perfect bread.

A bit of inspiration came earlier tonight when I stumbled across this site, about how millstones work. I have no idea how I found the page, but it was very interesting reading, especially for people interested in history. Lots of nuggets of history there.

So I found an easy french bread recipe to use as my jumping off point. I tried the recipe verbatim tonight, and right now the dough is rising. I liked the recipe because the page said it was a good starting point for cinnamon rolls and other pastries, as well as french bread.

Updates forthcoming…

Here’s a recipe for a great carrot cake. I just made one today and it’s pretty good. Best of all, there’s no partially hydrogenated oil so you won’t get any trans-fat. Just good butter (not margarine).

• 1 1/3 c. water
• 1 1/3 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 c. brown sugar
• 1 c. raisins
• 2 large carrots, grated
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. butter

Combine the above into a saucepan, cook and stir for 5-8 minutes on medium heat. Meanwhile, combine the following in a mixing bowl.

• 2 c. flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 c. chopped walnuts
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Add the wet mixture to the flour and beat it to death (til the flour clumps go away).

Bake it till its done.

Still haven’t figured out a frosting, but cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla might be a good start.