Chizza - Child of Pullman

Ingredients:

• 6 1/2 cups flour 
• 1 1/2 tbsp yeast 
• 1 1/2 tbsp sea salt 
• 1 Konig's Pilsner 
• Bake @ 450 degrees F for 25 minutes (45 minutes for the pullman loaf pan)

What do you get when an overactive beer yeast dough overflows its proverbial banks? Well, you get an extra bit of dough that makes a perfect meal in itself. For me, I just threw the dough in a mini spring form pan and loaded the top with Supremo quesadilla cheese because that is what I had. The beer in the dough gives this dough extra flavor and adds a bit of rise so when this little cheese pizza hit the oven, the rise is quite marvelous. If you ever wanted a bagel without all the lye, malt bath jazz, this might just be it. Instead of the malt being in the bath, it is in the dough itself. Great flavor, tender chewy texture that I really enjoyed. My hubby just said, "Money. Wify, this is money." The money must be in the imported beer I kidnapped for the bread... A wonderful Austrian Pilsner that rivals my favorite Czech beer. It was well worth the risk of misadventure and will likely become a staple if I can spare a beer every now and then. The cheese on top melts so nicely and creates a cheese crust that just gives the right amount of cheese flavor. Use what you have. An aged cheddar would be excellent. We split this little experiment and few crumbs survived to tell the tale.  

This recipe fills a Pullman loaf pan which is what I started with to begin with. Actually, I make the dough so that Hubby can make bread if he runs out mid week. He started the rise, left it a bit too long and the excess oozed out and that is how this chizza was born, y'all.

Hopped Up Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:
- 6 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tbsp yeast
- 1 1/2 tbsp salt
- 1 Konig's Pilsner plus water to equal 3 liquid cups

I started experimenting with a Pullman loaf pan when my nieces and nephews were here and wanted sandwich bread.  What I noticed about the request was that it didn't have to be uber soft, like typical American white bread, it just had to be square, for making sammies.

So, I complied with this request. We started making mayo and our version of Miracle Whip, when they needed that and this fascinated them to no end. So much so that every time they come, it is one of the first things we do together. Or they do and I watch. I want them to be self sufficient cooks when they are older and not just be able to cook, but be able to think they can replicate anything they really love. It's all about the palate and what I find with kids is that they love to try when THEY can make things. Veggies aren't that gross when kids make them for themselves. Nothing is weird, nothing is yucky. In fact, cooking with children is the fastest way to get kids to expand their minds and their palates.

This pullman loaf pan sorta scared me at first. I mean, why should I have to enclose the bread? Will it come out? But, the truth is this method of cooking bread couldn't be any easier and the top helps to make the bread perfectly square. My niece, who just graduated from high school, is about to venture into the world as a young adult and she, definitely, needed to know how to make bread. She has a tight budget to watch as she prepares to pay for college, so she'll need all the budget saving tips you can get and nothing can stretch a dollar like knowing how to cook and feed yourself. You can get a 25 lb bag of flour from Costco for about $6 and at least 25 loaves of bread.  At max, you could get around 7 loaves at the grocery store.

Prep:
Mix all ingredients until incorporated and then put the dough in a covered container to rise. I use a rising container that holds 4 qts. This batch of dough fills it by half. So in an hour or two, it is usually doubled in size and should be punched down then put in the fridge or freezer until ready to use. I keep it in the same rising container and once a week, I start a new batch.

Method:
For the method itself, I simply take my refrigerated dough from the fridge when I'm ready and put the whole batch in the Pullman loaf pan. I slide the top on nearly all the way but leave a little room to peep at it so I know when it is nearly to the top. In the summer, set a timer of max 2 hrs, because this bread tends to rise faster of course because of the warm temperatures but also because of the extra activity of the yeast in the beer. It will poop out the sides even if the top is thoroughly on and that is how you get Cheeza. But that is another story for another time. 

Bake:
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees and bake for 45 minutes. Slide the top off and use a slim butter knife just to loosen the edges of the bread from the pan and it will pop right out. You really should try to get the bread out of the pan while it's warm if you can or the bread bottom and sides will get a tad soggy as it cools off. Not to worry. If you have no choice but to leave it like that, just leave the bread to sit out for an hour or so once it is out of the pan and it will dry right up.  I cut the bread in half, put it in a bread box and that will last us all week or more. If I need to store it, I just wrap it well in wax paper and plastic wrap and freeze it.