Domestic Day: Round 2

Remember our first "Domestic Day"?  And then remember when I finally shared the recipes?  And remember when I told you that I would tell you about our second domestic day?  Please say you followed all those links....

Weeeeeeeellllllllllll.  We had another domestic day.  And it was epic. Epicly awesome.  (Purpose of domestic day = bake lots, talk lots, be together lots, eat lots, etc. lots)

It was my turn to travel, so I converged (with all my baking gadgets) upon Cheri's sweet kitchen.

The pan we were using may or may not have been too big for the oven, so Cheri may or may not have been keeping the oven door sealed with her backside.  Like I said...may or may not.

 Baking is just happy work.  Everything is yellow, but yellow is a happy color. 

 Yellow is the color of only good things: butter, cookies, bread, sunshine, flowers, and......other stuff.

 We tried a few new recipes, but mainly stuck with the tried and true ones from last time. (If you didn't follow the link to the recipes, do that NOW.  You won't regret it.)

 Cheri knocked out 8 loaves of bread while I hammered out dozens of cookies and breakfast bars.

 Um, yum.

 Okay, so we tried a new method with our pizza crusts.  And it worked like a charm.  Seriously.  We allowed the dough to go through it's whole slow and steady rising time.  Then we baked it for 5 minutes, let it cool, wrapped it, and froze it.  I used mine a few weeks ago, and I was wowed at the deliciousness of the frozen crust.  (PS - I believe I have the best recipe for pizza crust EVER.  See below.)

 Cinnamon roll time.  We used Pioneer Woman's recipe, but added white and brown sugar to the innards as well as walnuts.  We also used white whole wheat for the dough and added flax seed to give it, as Cheri says, "girth" in the morning.

 Mmmmmm.  Butter.

 Mmmmmmm. Sugar.  And nuts.

 If this doesn't make you immediately salivate, I don't know what will.  (Maybe a less-yellow picture?  Sorry, I only take yellow-infiltrated pics whilst baking.)

 Our loot!

 And our genius packing system:  wrap 2 cinnamon rolls in plastic and place in freezer bag.  On the weekends, I've been pulling out a pair and defrosting instead of having to defrost an entire 9 x 13.  Genius, I tell you. Well, Cher's the genius in our friendship. I'm fairly confident she has more baking brain cells than I

 Done, and done.

I would love to say that our day(s) ended happily.  But I can't.  While helping me carry my billion bags of stuff to my car, Cheri slipped on a leaf (on the stairs!!) and hit the back of her head something fierce.  I encouraged her to sue her apartment for negligence.  But Cheri ain't like that.  She's a real gem.  (Update:  she has since recovered, but she reported that the rest of that near-fatal day was a bit foggy.)

And, as promised, here is the faithful pizza crust recipe:

Pan Pizza (makes 2 9 inch pizzas)
1/2 c. olive oil
3/4 c. plus 2 T. milk, warmed to 110
2 t. sugar (or honey)
2 1/3 c. all-purpose flour (sometimes I use whole wheat to jazz it up...you'll just need more liquid if you do that)
1 package instant yeast
1/2 t. salt

Heat oven to 200.  When the oven reaches 200, turn it off. Lightly grease large bowl with cooking spray.  Coat each of the 2 9-inch cake pans with 3 T. oil.  Mix milk, sugar, and remaining 2 T. oil in measuring cup.  Mix flour, yeast, and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook.  Turn maching to low and slowly add milk mixture.  After dough comes together, increase speed to medium-low and mix until dough is shiny and smooth (give it time with this step).  Turn dough onto lightly floured counter, gently shape into ball, and place in greased bowl.  Cover with plastic wrap and place in warm oven until doubled in size (30 minutes...or 20, if you're impatient like me).

Transfer dough to lightly floured counter, divide in half, and lightly roll each half into a ball.  Working with 1 dough ball at a time, roll, shape, and press dough in pan.  Cover with plastic and set in warm spot (not oven) until puffy and slightly risen (20 minutes).  Top with awesome things and bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

Make pizza now.  This one will knock your socks off.  Yum.  Happy domesticity!