I Think I Might Stick to Pizza

Additionally...
Note to self:  Don't talk about posting pictures of a project before you try it...so you will have process and 'success' photos to share!


I told you in Pre-Stromboli Research I was going to try making single-serving Stromboli, or some RHome410 variation.  Sitting at Prince Inventive's tennis tournament, I was trying to envision how I would form them, and what shape might work best.  Without a clear conclusion, I decided to let Prince CuddleBunny, the one requesting Stromboli, weigh in.  I asked him if he wanted to have them turn out in a half circle (like Calzone, but personally sized and with sauce inside), or in the cylindrical shape, like we'd had from the mall.  He chose the half-circle.

So I started by dividing my 6-Quart Bucket of pizza dough into 4-ounce pieces, using, of course, my Escali Scale.  I began to form individual circles, the same as for pizza, but smaller.  

Classic pizza sauce and toppings

The soft dough made this difficult, especially when it came time to fold and move the item onto a piece of parchment that would fit on the pizza stone.  I could have formed it on the parchment, but if I wanted to fit 4 on each, I'd run out of room for spreading and filling.  It'd be a waste of time, oven energy, and parchment to do only 2 per batch.


I could tell that this method was going to be a struggle and take FOREVER.  So I came up with Plan B. For that I rolled out half the dough into a manageable rectangle, about 12" by 24".  I then sliced it down the center, lengthwise, and spread the fillings over the front half of each strip, staying a half inch or so back from the edge.  



I brought the back (emptier) half over and pressed it together along the front edge.  


I cut each stuffed tube into 4 pieces and stretched the dough over the ends to seal.  With this I experienced varying success with the soft dough, and each one ended up to be a slightly different shape,

 depending on what it took to feel I had the ends well sealed... So it was on to Plan C... Or maybe Plan B2.

I neglected to keep the filling to one side this time,
so I pulled the dough from both sides to seal on top.
These have the white garlic sauce and chicken filling.

For the remaining dough, I rolled it into the same 12" by 24" rectangle, and again sliced it down the center, lengthwise.  This time I divided the fillings into 4 sections along the strips, leaving space in between, 

so that when I divided each tube into 4 pastries, I had unadorned dough to work with to make a better, more consistent end seal, and shape.

They weren't pretty, but they were tasty.  
For some reason, they seemed to taste just a little different than pizza, so had a different appeal that I think the family may request from time to time.  Weekly, though, it will be much easier and faster to continue to make pizzas.  

If the family wants these again, I'll start with a stiffer/dryer dough, for easier handling, and hope I don't trade handling and appearance for the taste.








Previous related posts:

Pizza Crust....
The continuing quest for the best.

Pizza sauces...better late than never?