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I haven’t done this style of bread in sometime, I found a package of freeze dried strawberries in the back of a cupboard so it inspired me to use it.  Matcha and strawberries are great together.  Although I have made this style of bread before, I’d never done with with my mochi formula which uses sweet rice flour as the tangzhong.  I have to say this worked out very well, the strawberry flavour comes through with the matcha without either overpowering the other.

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For a 4” x 9” pullman pan

8.5 g matcha 17 g sugar, just enough boiling water to make a thick paste

11 g of powdered freeze dried strawberries

Instructions

Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

Press down with your knuckles or silicone spatula to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At a temperature of 76-78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.  For my starter I typically see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak.  The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.

Tangzhong 

In a sauce pan set on medium heat, stir the milk and glutinous rice flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.  Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature.  You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it, ensure that it is covered to prevent it from drying out.

If you plan on using a stand mixer to mix this dough, set up a Bain Marie and use your stand mixer’s bowl to prepare the tangzhong.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10 g of milk and adding later if this is the first time you’re making this), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into many smaller pieces.  Next add the flour.  I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren’t many dry areas.  Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes.  Mix on low speed and then medium speed until moderate gluten development this may take 5-10 mins.  You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl during the first 5 minutes of mixing.  Next add room temperature butter one pat at a time.  The dough may come apart, be patient, continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more butter.  Again, knead until well incorporated.  You will want to check gluten development by windowpane during this time and stop mixing when you get a good windowpane.  You should be able to pull a good windowpane.

Shape into a ball and divide into approximate thirds.  Shape the largest third into a boule and set aside covered with a towel.

Take one dough ball and gradually add the strawberry powder, slap and fold until the strawberry is fairly even throughout the dough.

Take the final dough ball and gradually add the matcha paste, slap and fold until the matcha is even throughout the dough.

You can either do shaping immediately or wait to allow some rise, 3-4 hours and then shape.  Either will work, waiting to allow some rise will create a more even crumb.

Lightly flour a work surface and the plain dough boule.  Roll out to at least 12” in length and about 8” wide, set aside.  Continue to do the same with the other two balls next rolling the strawberry dough out to 12” and placing that on top of the plain rolled out dough.  Finally rolling the matcha dough out again to 12” and finally placing that on top of the strawberry dough.  Optional roll out further if it has contracted in length.

Using a ruler and pizza cutter, cut the dough into evenly wide strips about 1.5-2 cm wide along the length of the dough but leaving about 2-4 cm of dough uncut at the end furthest away from you.  When all the strips are cut, twist the strips in alternating directions, clockwise and then counter clockwise.  Once all the strips are twisted, roll the whole thing into a log starting furthest away from you getting a nice tight roll at the start.  Once rolled transfer to your pullman pan on a parchment sling with the ends of the strips at the bottom.

Place in the proofing box set to 82-84ºF to proof until the dough comes to approximately 1 cm below the edge of the Pullman pan.  This takes about 8-8.5 hours at 82ºF, the yeast isn’t likely to be osmotolerant so it will take longer than you would normally expect.  You could consider spiking the dough with some IDY if you’re in a bit of a rush or want a less sour bread perhaps 0.5%.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash about 30 mins prior to your dough reaching within 1 cm of the rim of the pan.  Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF

Remove from oven and place on a rack to cool completely before slicing.

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My index of bakes.

I last made these around the holidays and wanted to make them again based on comments I received.  Essentially there wasn’t quite enough ginger in them, the cinnamon was dominant the first time.  I fix that I’ve increase the ginger by 50% and based on comments from people who ate them, I think I’ve got that right now.

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Makes 12 rolls in a 13” x 9” pan

Ingredients Dough

3¾ to 4¼ cups all-purpose flour 480 g (4 cups)

4 tsp. ground ginger 

1tsp. ground cinnamon

4 tsp. ground cloves

4.9 g osmotolerant yeast

¾ cup milk (184 g)

1 cup plain mashed potato

⅓ cup butter (76 g)

⅓ cup molasses (93.3 g)

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

Ingredients Filling

¼ cup packed brown sugar

2 tsp ground ginger

3 tsp ground cinnamon 

¼ tsp ground cloves

1/16 cup flour (can be AP or bread) inc to ⅛ cup next time 

¼ cup butter melted 

Ingredients Frosting

85 g cream cheese

2 tbsp butter

2 ½ cups of icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1-2 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

1. In a large bowl stir together 480 g flour, 4 tsp. of the ginger, 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, ¼ tsp. of the cloves, and the yeast. In the bowl of your mixer stir milk, mashed potato, ⅓ cup melted butter, the molasses, eggs and salt. Add flour mixture to the liquid mixture. Mix then knead until gluten is well developed.

2. Turn dough out onto and shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise until doubled in size (about 120 minutes).  Can do a cold retard at this point.  Even using osmotolerant yeast this will take longer than you expect, the cinnamon and molasses really slows fermentation.

3. Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Lightly grease or line with parchment paper a 13×9-inch baking pan. Prepare filling as directed in Step 4. Roll dough into an 18×12-inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter and sprinkle with filling, leaving 1 inch unfilled along one of the long sides. Roll up tightly, starting from filled long side and pinching seam to seal. Cut into 12 slices using dental floss; arrange in pan. Cover; let rise until nearly double in size (60 minutes). 

5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 minutes. Invert to remove from pan; invert rolls again onto a platter. 

6. While the rolls are cooling, in a medium bowl beat 3 oz. (85 g) softened cream cheese, 2 Tbsp. softened butter, and 1 tsp. vanilla with a mixer on medium until combined. Gradually beat in 2½ cups powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in enough lemon juice, 1 tsp. at a time, to reach spreading consistency. 

7. Once cooled completely spread with Cream Cheese Frosting. 

My index of bakes

Here is a copy of a Baker's Percentage spreadsheet I developed.   I have included a blank version and a copy of my Country Loaf Recipe.

Baker's Percentage Spreadsheet

Sourdough Country Loaf

thank you all for taking the time to read this lengthy post and any feedback is very much appreciated.

• i have been baking a ton of bread the last 4-6 months and i have learned a lot, but am still struggling to execute really good fermentation. 
  • this last bake (naturally leavened) i pushed fermentation to the max (for me, at least): 40% inoculation, 10 hrs of total fermentation. the first 3 hours the dough temp was 85, then i let it coast for 6 more hours at room temp (RT 68). it was nearly tripled in volume so, thinking it was overproofed, i gently shaped it and only let it proof an hour before i baked it in a hot oven with steam.
  • the final crumb of this loaf was the same as all other previous loaves. open crumb near the very edge, but tight everywhere else. not great oven spring, a little heavy for its size, but great color. i feel like ill know overproofed when i see it. this still feels very characteristic of underproofed.

• lastly, i’ve been working on some cinnamon raisin bread but still underproofing. bulk was great at 6hrs but the final proof was 3hrs (thinking it was ready!) at RT (68-69). bread came out lacking good oven spring, it felt heavy, and the crumb is very tight and weirdly dry on the inside. really showing how slow fermentation can be when the bread is enriched with egg, butter, sugar, and cinnamon.
• sorry for no pictures, i dont know how to condense the photos from my phone so they can fit on the blog post.
• my two questions after these two bakes are:
  • am i overlooking the affect of room temperature on fermentation time  (68 is pretty chilly)
  • is my starter just naturally sluggish and, is there a way to train it to work faster or, do i now need to develop the recipes/schedule based on how the starter performs 

As I had posted in reply to cfraenkel, this Easter I tried  to make a Greek sweet Easter bread that has eluded me so far in terms of a successful bake. 

They haven't been a disaster, but also not what I had tried and liked so much. 

It has a very particular flavor thanks to a combination of ground cherry seed powder (mahleb) and ground up dry mastic resin. It also has a very characteristic texture/crumb, more stretchy, chewy, and moist rather than with big bubbles and airy. 

After substantial research online, even from Greek YouTube videos/sites, I decided to try a yeasted poolish recipe I cobbled together from a variety of different sources.  

Two key insights I tried to incorporate in the bake that were new and I felt might provide that missing something from the previous attempts:

1. Build the dough up in successive stages going from more to less liquid, at each stage of the process
2. Bake in a reducing temperature oven

The recipe for one loaf was as follows:

Poolish: 100g milk mixed with 100g strong white flour, 5g of sugar, and commercial yeast according to how long the poolish can be left to fully ferment. I had a timeframe of about 3h, so used 1g of active yeast powder. For fresh compressed yeast that would be 2g.   

Once the poolish has doubled in size and is very active (after about 3h), I combined it with the ingredients for the intermediate dough, which was as follows:

250g (of a final total of 300g) of strong white flour, 2eggs, 100g of sugar, a pea size piece of the dried mastic ground up with a mortar and pestle with a little of the sugar and mahleb powder, some orange zest (optional) and 40g of soft butter cut into small pieces.

I mixed the poolish, flour, sugar, eggs, and spices first, let it fully hydrate, and then mixed in the soft butter.

The resulting sticky and high hydration dough was then left to again at least double in size. (it took me about 4-5h). Some recipes also add a little more yeast at this stage to get it all moving faster, but I chose to take a slower less yeasted approach.

Once the intermediate dough is fermenting strongly and doubled in size, it is time to combine with the remaining flour in order to produce a much firmer dough that is easy to handle. I started mixing in a little at a time with dough whisk and once it was firm enough to kneed, I then proceeded by hand. As soon as it has reached this stage, I continued adding a little flour at a time, until I had a dough that was just firm enough to not stick too the kneading surface. I found that this was pretty much exactly at the 300g total without counting the flour in the poolish. 

With my first bake (picture bellow), I then left the resulting final dough to bulk ferment until I got a descent poke test, but what I found was that by then, it was too slack to be able to shape/braid easily and then also hold its shape, so I put the resulting loaf in a baking tin and let it ferment till almost double in size and then baked in a 'falling' oven. So heat to 200C with fan, change to 200C bottom only for 10min once the tin was in, then reduce to 180C bottom and top for 10min, and finish, at 160C for 10min, again bottom and top. The top of the loaf was brushed with eggwash before putting it in the oven and topped with almond slivers.

The second bake (pictured at the top of the post), was pretty much the same, but what I did instead was not bulk ferment the final firm dough, but proceed to braiding straight after it had relaxed for about 30min from the kneading.

The shaping takes the following process: cut the final dough into 3 using the dough scraper. It's important to weigh and make sure they are as equal weight as possible. Flatten out, either by hand or using a rolling pin, and then roll up into a kind of sausage shape. Do the same with the other lumps of dough. Then, starting with the first one, roll it out by hand into a kind of long thin snake shape and then do the same with the other two, making sure they are as similar length and thickness.

With the 2nd bake, once I made the 3 dough lengths and braided them into a loaf, I left the resulting loaf on a baking tray lined with baking paper and covered with a wet towel for about 6h to rise ahead of the bake. 

Once the loaf seemed to be nice and plump, but not too soft (it is important not too let it ferment too much as it becomes like brioche/cake and not chewy/stringy) , it is time to bake. I found the poke test not really much use, just the plumpness of the braids.  I started the oven heating up to 200C with fan, and then did the first eggwash. I then did one more before putting it in, sprinkling, the 2nd time with sugar and the almond slivers. Put it in and switched to 200C bottom only for 10min, then 180C for 10min top and bottom, and finished with 160C top and bottom. 

The 1st bake was OK, the crumb was not bad, but it was too much like a brioche/cake rather than the more chewy tsoureki. The shaping/bradding was problematic, and making it in a tin, while a good emergency measure, took away the nice look of the stand-alone loaf.

The 2nd bake, was almost right. Going directly from final dough to shaping without bf really worked well. The baking is where the final tweak is needed. Warming the oven to 200C was OK, but probably should have then reduced to 180C for the 10min bottom only stage, and then moved a shelf up for the two top and bottom stages but at 160C and 140C respectively. 

I'll provide updates as to how these last tweaks worked out. 

I pretty much have this one down pat. I am now working on an unfed l, overnight room temperature ferment style.

It's the early bird that catches the worm.

Bake off protocol initiated.

1. Preheat sequence - T Minus 30 minutes to completion.

2. Pre bake visual fermentation inspection ✅

95-100% of full fermentation achieved. 

3. The flip ✅

4. The Slash ✅

5. The Load ✅

6. Initiate steam injection ✅

Now we wait...

My goodness, how good fresh bread smells in the morning!

The crumb reveal

Hey everyone,

I've posted another recipe on my website, this time for a pocket-style barley bread we have in Egypt. This one was slightly challenging to produce a full pocket with barley flour since it doesn't contribute any gluten. Pocket formation seems to depend on a strong gluten network and I managed to get enough strength in the dough by using 50% wheat and 50% barley while pushing my oven to its maximum temperature.

Check out the recipe here: Egyptian barley bread recipe

Let me know if you've tested it and how it turned out. Have you tried using barley flour before in baking? There seems to be little information here on The Fresh Loaf about barley flour.

My second go at this bread that uses sweet rice flour (aka glutinous rice flour) in the tangzhong.  Read my previous blog post for details as to why this type of rice flour is especially good as a tangzhong and prolonging the freshness of bread.  You’ll recall that this rice flour is also used to make mochi, which I have made before and it also delicious so it is a good thing to have around if you like Asian treats.

For this bake I fixed the hydration error that I made last time that prevented me from shaping the dough as I had intended.  I’m much happier with this bake.  I haven’t sliced it yet so I’ll post those photos and flavour/texture comments later.

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For one 9x4x4” Pullman pan loaf.

Instructions

Levain

Mix the levain ingredients in a jar or pyrex container with space for at least 300% growth. 

Press down with your knuckles or silicone spatula to create a uniform surface and to push out air.

At a temperature of 76-78ºF, it typically takes up to 10-12 hours for this sweet stiff levain to be at peak.  For my starter I typically see 3-3.5 times increase in size at peak.  The levain will smell sweet with only a mild tang.

Tangzhong 

In a sauce pan set on medium heat, stir the milk and glutinous rice flour until blended. Then cook for several minutes until well thickened, stirring regularly with a spoon or heat-resistant spatula. Let cool in the pan or, for faster results, in a new bowl.  Theoretically it should reach 65ºC (149ºF) but I don’t find I need to measure the temperature as the tangzhong gelatinizes at this temperature.  You can prepare this the night before and refrigerate it, ensure that it is covered to prevent it from drying out.

If you plan on using a stand mixer to mix this dough, set up a Bain Marie and use your stand mixer’s bowl to prepare the tangzhong.

Dough

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the milk (consider holding back 10 g of milk and adding later if this is the first time you’re making this), egg, tangzhong, salt, sugar and levain.  Mix and then break up the levain into many smaller pieces.  Next add the flour.  I like to use my spatula to mix until there aren’t many dry areas.  Allow the flour to hydrate (fermentolyse) for 20-30 minutes.  Mix on low speed and then medium speed until moderate gluten development this may take 5-10 mins.  You may want to scrape the sides of the bowl during the first 5 minutes of mixing.  Next add room temperature butter one pat at a time.  The dough may come apart, be patient, continue to mix until it comes together before adding in more butter.  Again, knead until well incorporated.  You will want to check gluten development by windowpane during this time and stop mixing when you get a good windowpane.  You should be able to pull a good windowpane.

On the counter, shape the dough into a tight ball, cover in the bowl and ferment for 2 - 4 hours at 82ºF.  There should be some rise visible at this stage.

You can next place the dough into the fridge to chill the dough for about 1.5 hours, this makes rolling the dough easier to shape.  Remember, if you do so the final proof will take longer.  Alternatively, you can do a cold retard in the fridge overnight, however, you may find that this increases the tang in your bread.

Prepare your pans by greasing them with butter or line with parchment paper.  

Lightly oil the top of the dough. Scrape the dough out onto a clean counter top and divide it into four. I like to weigh them to have equal sized lobes. Shape each tightly into a boule, allow to rest 5 mins. Using an oiled rolling pin roll each ball out and then letterfold. Turn 90* and using a rolling pin roll each out to at least 8”. Letterfold again from the sides so you have a long narrow dough. Then using a rolling pin, roll flatter but keeping the dough relatively narrow.  The reason to do this extra letterfold is that the shorter fatter rolls when placed in the pan will not touch the sides of the pan.  This allows the swirled ends to rise during final proof, this is only done for appearance sake and is not necessary.  Next roll each into a tight roll with some tension. Arrange the rolls of dough inside your lined pan alternating the direction of the swirls. This should allow a greater rise during proof and in the oven.

Cover and let proof for  4-6 hours at a warm temperature.  I proof at 82°F.  You will need longer than 4-6 hours if you chilled your dough for shaping. I proof until the top of the dough comes to within 1 cm of the top edge of the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350F and brush the dough with the egg-milk wash.  Just prior to baking brush with the egg-milk wash again.

Bake the loaves for 50 minutes or until the internal temperature is at least 190ºF, rotating as needed to get even browning. Shield your loaf if it gets brown early in the baking process. After 50 mins remove the bread from the pan and bake a further 10 mins by placing the loaf directly in the oven on the rack with the oven turned down to 325ºF.

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Sometimes you get the bear.  Yes, really.  After a number of recent thoroughly edible but not very interesting bakes, I finally have one that gets me excited.

Sure, I could have let the final ferment go a bit longer but ... I'm getting ahead of myself.

We got home last Friday from a 3.5 week trip to Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji.  Which was absolutely wonderful, by the way.  We are happy to be back home and sleeping in our own bed after 15 flights and 11 different hotels. 

Before leaving, I had fed my starter twice.  The second feeding was extremely stiff, almost like a biga or bagel dough, since I wanted it to have enough food during our prolonged absence.  Upon returning, I gave it two more feedings just to ensure that it was at full strength.

Since we needed bread, I cast about for ideas and this bread was the one that caught my eye. 

The rye sour and the hot soaker were mixed Saturday evening.  Since I was out of sunflower seeds, I substituted chia seeds in the soaker. 

On Sunday morning, I mixed the dough.  What with the rye sour, the soaker, and the honey in the dough, I was happy to use my mixer to do the work instead of mixing and kneading by hand.  As Mr. Hamelman notes, the dough had ample gluten development in spite of all of the seeds and it was rather sticky.  I chose to cut the yeast in half, knowing that I would be away from the house for a couple of hours.  That worked well to keep the dough from over-fermenting while I was out. 

Once the dough was near doubled in volume, it was divided and shaped into three loaves; each slightly more than 1.5 pounds pre-bake weight.  These were placed on a baking sheet, dusted with rye flour, and covered with plastic wrap for final fermentation.  When they were about 75% of the way toward doubling, I preheated the oven.  Once the oven was up to temperature, I poured water in the steam tray, slashed the loaves, and popped them into the oven.  Per instructions, the oven was turned down from 460F to 450F after the first 10 minutes. 

The slashes opened beautifully, forming sharp ears as the loaves expanded.  The crust is a beautiful deep brown with russet notes and is rather thick and hard.  The interior is moist and cool and crunchy/chewy with all of the seeds from the soaker.

So, yeah, maybe a longer final ferment would have led to a more open crumb.  I'm still happy with the outcome, though.  And, it didn't drip any mayonnaise on my lap while I enjoyed a turkey sandwich for lunch today.

Paul

It has been a massive source of frustration for me that, despite being able to produce pretty descent sourdough loaves, I have abjectly failed, so far, to make any remotely good pizzas and focaccias.

Even as a kid I remember trying to make pizzas and being so massively disappointed with the biscuity results. 

Every time I would come across some new technique or method that seemed to me to provide some kind of logical 'fix' for what I was thinking the underlying problem might be, I would try it, but still, that elusive soft and puffy but at the same time crunchy base would elude me.  

My Italian wife, eager to prevent my next disappointment, would tell me that it was not my fault and that without a proper pizza  oven no one can make descent pizza, that's why in Italy everyone buys them from the pizza shop!

But still, despite the recurring disappointments, my baker's curiosity (and pride) would never let me give up, much to my family's growing impatience with my, in their eyes, futile attempts. 

I was becoming more and more convinced that the problem was not in the dough or its shaping, but the oven and baking and finding a way to make the home oven mimic a proper pizza oven, even if it cannot reach the kind of temperatures a pizza oven can reach.

The latest 'hack' for how to do this, which rekindled my flagging but not entirely lost enthusiasm/curiosity, was a YouTube video by some Italian guys (Malati di pizza) who come up with and try all sorts of ways for making pizza at home.

The basic idea behind their most successful bake in a home oven was to create in the top of a home oven, a separate oven section in which a pizza oven could be simulated. They used two pizza stones (one thick ceramic, the other a thinner more stone like) on the top but one oven rack in the oven, to completely separate the upper chamber from the rest of the oven. The stones needed to reach to the very walls of the oven, both on the sides and from back to front, so as to create a high temperature section at the top with the temperature at the bottom part being much lower. They even disconnected the oven thermostat probe from the top of the oven and let it hang down into the lower chamber.

The idea was to use the grill-only function to heat the top artificial chamber to a much higher temperature than the normal range of the oven and then bake the pizza on the extremely hot stone and close to the grill, simulating the way pizza ovens work.

Defying the groans and rolling of eyes of my family when I told them that ' this time it would come out nice' I decided to give it a try. Made a 3h poolish with active yeast powder and then a 70% hydration final dough with all-purpose flour that was left to become super active and given many S&Fs and laminations in the process. I was not committed enough to move the temperature probe, but was able to create a mini sub-chamber in the top of the oven using some leftover tiles from some home decorating that were the right size to form a wall-to-wall ceramic base for the sub-chamber and cracked up the temperature of the oven to max on grill-only function and left it to warm for a long time, until it switched off (I assume at the top temperature of the oven). Meantime, I formed the base, brushed with EVO, chopped up some tomatoes from a tin, and mixed with some salt, pepper, and oregano and left the base to rise on some tin foil. Once the oven was at the highest temperature it would go to and switched off, I spread the tomato on to the base and put it into the, by now, very hot upper chamber. Put the timer for 5min and chopped up some mozzarella to sprinkle on top once the tomato had dried a little. 

I could see it all growing and puffing up almost as soon as I put it in and by the time I opened the oven to put the mozzarella on, the base and tomato looked really great. 3min later (8min in total), I took it out and let it cool on the chopping board before cutting it, bit into the slice I had just cut and ... there it was! An almost perfect home baked pizza that had so long eluded me! The picture shows what it looked like. 

Despite the good appearance, the family were still skeptical, to say the least, but as soon as they had bitten into the first slice, they all started to nod and smile and grudgingly admitted: 'this time you have finally got it'! My teenage son then proceeded to eat the entire remaining pizza himself! 

I have to say, it was a really nice feeling! These breakthroughs are what make me like baking so much I think. When, after all those experiments and disappointments one finally produces a successful result, it is a really good feeling. 

Of course, now the task of optimization begins! I think a slight tweaking of the temperature trajectory will yield an even better results. It was a little too pale underneath, so I think I will let the tiles warm up much longer at full temperature and then reduce the oven temperature a little (220C?) after I put the pizza in so it cooks slightly more underneath before the top is ready. But, apart from that, I am pretty sure that this will work from now on.