Cooking is a passion of mine, I love to get in the kitchen, slip an apron on, pour a glass of wine, put on some music and chop, sautee, and dice away. I enjoy trying new recipes and putting my own zig on them, a little more of this and a little more of that. But just like a hairdresser needs a good pair of scissors, or a carpenter needs the right screwdriver, a cook needs the right tools to work with. One tool I have always wanted to own to help make my creations is a mixer. The Kenwood Chef is a dream come true! I jumped for joy when I got the offer to review this beautiful piece of equipment! Finally I was going to have a mixer and even better, before the holidays.
Kenwood Chef
I anxiously waited for my Kenwood Chef to arrive. It came in a very large box which puzzled me at first but all the pieces fell into place when I opened the box and saw that the Chef comes with a selection of ready to use attachments and specially designed functions. Including a range of attachment outlets, variable speed control and timer function . The mixer came with a blender and food processor attachments. What a great idea and it just saved me a ton of room in my cupboards by getting rid of my old blender and food processor. There are three different speed controls, fast, medium and low. The mixer is slim , sleek and fits nicely in a corner of my counter.
I had a few friends over on Saturday night and made Pina Coloda’s in the blender. It was nice to just pop the blender on top of the mixer instead of hauling out the blender from under the counter and trying to find room to plug it in. Once we were done clean up was easy. I just washed the goblet put it in the cupboard and pushed the mixer back into the corner.
The goblet to the blender is made out of heavy sturdy glass and the food processor came with 6 different disc from fine to coarse grating, thin to thick slicing, julienne slicing to rasping/Parmesan cheese disc.
I started thinking about all the delicious things I could make, process, and blend. I have always wanted to make two recipes from scratch that require a mixer, one is homemade pasta, the other pizza dough. Since I haven’t bought the pasta adapter yet I decided to try and make a pizza dough and make my family’s favorite 3 Cheese Italian Pizza.
3 Cheese Italian Pizza
450 degrees for 25-30 minutes
Pizza Dough Ingredients:
- 500 grams flour, 00 ultra fine
- 325 grams water
- 10 grams table salt, (or 1 T Kosher salt)
- 3 grams active dry yeast
Directions:
- Combine all ingredients in mixer at low speed until well-combined; about 2 minutes.
- Cover bowl and allow to rest for 20 minutes (autolyse).
- Then mix at medium speed for 5 to 6 minutes until smooth and silky.
- Turn out onto floured board and knead by hand for a few turns.
- Cut into four 7-ounce pieces.
- Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Next day, remove from refrigerator for about 2 hours prior to using.
- To make your pizza balls, shape each piece of dough into a ball.
- Gently roll your dough into a ball, then stretch the top of the ball down and around the rest of the ball, until the outer layer wraps around the other side.
- Pinch the two ends together to make a smooth ball with a tight outer “skin.”
- Set your ball seam-side down where it can rest.
- Dust your pizza balls with flour, and store them under a damp towel, in a proofing tray, or under plastic wrap.
- This will prevent the outside of the ball from drying out and creating a crust, and becoming difficult to work with.
- The top of the pizza ball should be soft and silky.
Your pizza balls will need to rest for about an hour to become soft and elastic, so that they can be easily stretched into a thin crust pizza.
- If planning to use the dough on the same day it’s made, follow this procedure:
- Once the dough is kneaded, place in lightly oiled bowl.
- Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise at room temperature for about 3 hours.
- Turn out the dough onto lightly floured board.
- Using bench scraper, cut into 4 equal pieces.
- Gently round them, cover and allow to rise again for another hour.
- Then they’re ready to use.
Toppings Ingredients:
- 4 C Fresh Spinach
- 3 T Olive Oil
- 2 C Portobello Mushrooms
- 2 T Butter
- 3 cloves of Garlic -minced
- Fresh Basil
- 2 Large Tomatoes
- 1 C Ricotta cheese
- 3/4 C Fresh Parmensan cheese
- 2 C Mozzarella cheese
- Fresh basil
- Salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste
Directions:
- In a large pan place olive oil and fresh minced garlic, cook on medium heat for 2-3 minute, until you can start to smell the garlic,then add fresh spinach and cover. Stir occasionally until spinach is cooked down
- In another Large pan place 2 T of butter and washed Portobello mushrooms cook on med-high until mushrooms are soft.
- Slice 2 large tomatoes in thin slices. Chop up a few Basil leaves.
- Sprinkle flour on a large cutting board and roll dough with a rolling pin until desired thickness and size. Spray a pizza pan with cooking oil and place pizza dough on pan.
- Take the juice and oil from the spinach and spread on the edges of dough with a pastry brush.
- Spread Ricotta cheese over dough.
- Grade fresh Parmensan cheese over the Ricotta cheese
- Place mushrooms, spinach and basil on top of cheeses and then arrange the tomato slices on top.
- Shake salt, pepper and garlic powder over pizza to taste.
- Sprinkle Mozzarella cheese over the pizza evenly.
- Cook at 450 for approximately 25-30 minutes. Times vary depending on the oven so start checking on the pizza after 15-20 minutes.
I always start off on the bottom rack to brown the bottom and then move the pizza to the top rack after about 15-20 minutes. I also will slide the pizza off the pan onto the top rack to brown it up evenly.
This pizza dough recipe is absolutely delicious, it is easy to work with, rolls out nicely and bakes perfect, well worth the time it takes to make it.
Bon Appetit!
What would you like to make that requires a mixer?
