Cookies/pizza dough basic recipe?

For the pizza dough recipe, go to recipepizza.com. they have several you can use.

I really like this recipe for Pizza Dough when I am in a hurry. It’s really cheating, since you don’t have to wait for the dough to rise, but it still works remarkably well seeing that you have to only wait 5 min as opposed to the normal 30. That site, in general, is amazing for user reviewed and amazing recipes!

Here is the no cheat, actual pizza dough recipe I use. It is from Joy of Cooking, an amazing book, worth every penny!

This is for two 12 inch crusts:
1(1/3) cups warm water
1 package (2.25 tsp) active dry yeast

Let stand until yeast dissolves. ~5 min.
Add ~3.5 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsps olive oil
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

Mix and then knewad for about 10 min w/ hand until dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to bowl which is lightly coated w/ olive oil and turn it once to coat. Cover w/ plastic wrap and let rest for 1 – 1.5 hours

Preheat oven to 475 F, grease 2 baking sheets and preheat for 45 min
Divide dough into half, roll each out, put each on a baking sheet, life edges to form lip.

Push dents in surface of dough to prevent bubbling, wait 10 min, add toppings, bake!

At least now I know what I was doing wrong…everything! lol

I didn’t put yeast and I put it straight in the oven without the “resting”. Ok now I need the butter cookies one.

You can just put a tea-towel over the bowl of pizza dough if you want to stay away from the plastic wrap :)

I’ve never tried that quick version – I will next time for sure!

4 oz raising flour
enough hot water to form a dough say third of a cup to start with
pinch salt
Tbs oil

Mix all together in a bowl use a spoon then your hands, when dough has formed then place in hot place for 5 minutes. While this happens heat oven and a large frying pan little drop oil . Add enough dough to pan spread it out cook the underside of the dough flip over . add your sauce/paste then other ingredients by this time it shoud be ready to place pizza in oven cook for 5–10 minutes ( untill cheese is golden)
Then eat it

Okay, here’s my favorite recipe for basic butter/sugar cookies. I do mine with a little bit of colored sugar on top, but you could just as easily do it with plain granulated sugar.

Squished Sugar Cookies

Beat together until fluffy (butter and sugars first, then add the rest):
1c powdered sugar
1c granulated sugar
1c butter
1c oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Add to butter/sugar mixture and beat until well-mixed:
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar
4 ¼ c flour

Roll into 1-inch diameter balls, and place on a greased (or parchment papered) cookie sheet. Take a flat-bottomed glass, dip in colored sugar (or white sugar if you’re going simple), and squish each ball flat. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, or until they’re slightly golden around the edges.

Yummy!

ok I don’t even know what cream of tartar is, but I think I’ve got all the rest, so I’ll try that one now and tell you how it went.

I’m not entirely sure what the cream of tartar does either – I know it’s used for stabilizing egg whites when you’re beating them, but since you don’t separate the eggs in this recipe, that’s not it. I think you’ll be fine without it – I’m pretty sure that most baking powders already have some cream of tartar (or something similar) in them anyway…

Good luck – let us know how they turn out! =)

so sdeutsch…tried it

I used some milk instead of the cream (assuming it’s some milk cream)

The result was ok, but nothing like the taste I was looking for. They were too fluffy (they became enormous and touched each other, even though I made them smaller than you said). They taste fine, but not buttery enough (I didn’t have that much butter, that’s why). And perhaps I should have used less flour – I only used half of everything you said, trying to make half the quantity, but even 2 cups of flour was too much.

And perhaps I should have put more sugar (I used only 1c granulated plus some raw cane for the sprinkling).

Anyway, as long as they’re edible, it’s a good place to start, which is basically what I wanted. I’ll go buy lots of butter tomorrow and find out what that tartar cream thing is. I also ran out of vanilla. So I’ll try it tomorrow night and see if I can make better ones (I already have 4 trays of failures which we’ve been trying to eat).

Well, not using powdered sugar would drastically change the texture of the cookies, so it’s not surprising that they were fluffier than they should have been.

Also, cream of tartar has no relation to milk or cream – it’s actually a white powder that you find in the spice section. It seems that its primary function in baking is to affect the way things rise, so leaving it out (and subbing milk for it) would have made the cookies rise very differently than in the original recipe…

What sort of butter cookie are you looking for, exactly? Are you thinking more of flat rolled cookies? Or something more like shortbread? Shortbread is just about the most buttery cookie there is – you might want to give that recipe a try too…

hmm..probably closer to shortbread, though I remember my mother once made some really crunchy oblong butter cookies. She doesn’t remember the recipe either, or I’d ask her (and she’s generally not that good, it was just a fluke).

The ones I made were not bad, just need a lot of working on. I’m sure I can use your recipe to slowly come closer to what I’m looking for. The whole fun of cooking is the experimentation, after all. Otherwise I’d just buy ready-made at the supermarket ;)

Thanks for the answers. I’ll tell the pizza guys how that went when I try pizza too.

Hmm – shortbread probably is the closest to what you’re looking for, ‘cause it can get pretty crunchy. Experimenting with the first recipe should get you close too, though – you might want to try subbing some baking powder for the baking soda, since soda makes things much fluffier than powder does…

Good luck! Let us know how your experimentation goes – and if you find something really good, post an updated recipe! =)

ok so first of all, I simplified your recipe (assuming the soda etc just make it fluffier).

I used what I had, and substituted “c” for “250g” (a glassfull)

So, now it’s

250g oil
2 eggs, mixed in the oil
add 250g white sugar, stir
add 200g brown sugar (didn’t have any more left), stir some more
add 250g butter and the vanilla, mix the whole thing well
now add 1kg of flour, mix, make into balls, put in a pre-heated oven for 8–10 min.

fingers crossed…

That sounds like a cross between the basic shortbread and rolled sugar cookie recipes – it should be tasty!

Crossing my fingers for you… =)

I did the one above with only 800gr of flour (I ran out) and it tasted pretty good. It’s as close as I can hope to get to the taste I was looking for.

Then I added an egg to the mix, and what came out was too runny and sweet, very crunchy but not as tasty. I’m adding some more flour now to see how it goes.

The taste is pretty close to what I was looking for though. The simplified version is easy to remember and tastes great.

btw there is not a single piece left of all those batches, so I think I’ve been doing a good job so far ;)
Thanks for all the help :)

Ally’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
* 3 cups rolled oats
* 1 cup milk
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup margarine
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Soak the rolled oats in the milk for at least ten minutes.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine, brown sugar and white sugar. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Add the sifted ingredients, and mix well. Then stir in the oat mixture and chocolate chips.
3. Drop dough by heaping spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, until cookies are golden brown. Cool on baking sheets or remove to cool on wire racks.