Entertaining

   I hosted a Pampered Chef party Sunday - my first one. The consultant wanted to bring bread dipping sauces so I decided to make homemade French bread. Although my last few attempts had bombed, I gave it another shot. I also wanted to provide a dessert since the party was around dinner time. Instead of digging out someone else's recipe, I brainstormed to make my own and came up with strawberry cheesecake dessert pizza with homemade cinnamon pizza dough, which we could make on a Pampered Chef pizza stone! Win.

   French bread attempt #8 - I used the second recipe I tried months ago, but this time I followed the instructions more closely, only adding half the flour mixture to the yeast mixture forming a batter and let rise for 3 hours. After 3 hours, I added the rest of the flour, kneaded into a dough, let rise again for 1 hour. Knead again. Cut into 3 pieces and shape into baguettes. Let rise for 1 more hour. Cut diagonal slashes on the tops of the loaves. Prepare the oven at 450 and place a baking sheet on the lowest rack. Move the other rack to the top of the oven. Once the oven is preheated, place your loaves on the top rack. Throw and hand full of ice cubes on the bottom baking sheet. This will create a steam in your oven that gives you a really nice, crispy crust. Bake 25 minutes. The loaves came out perfect for the dipping sauce and the ladies loved it.

   Dessert pizza attempt #1 - I prepared my pizza dough as usual except I only used 1/4 the amount of salt and added 1 tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon. I let it rise for 3 hours, knead, rise 1 hour, knead, rise 1 hour. As my guests arrived, I was just stretching my dough to fit the retangular stone baking pan. I baked the dough at 350 for about 12 minutes, then added the sweetened cream cheese, crushed graham cracker crumbs and strawberry sauce. I baked that for another 10 minutes. Using a plastic spatula, lift the crust to check the underside for doneness. Top with fresh strawberries and cut into medium squares. Serve warm. Note: Although this was my first time making this dessert and I wasn't following a recipe, it came out really well. It was really delicious - just the right amount of sweet and cinnamon :)