Basic cheese calzone.

[jeff]

The recipe used for the calzone dough is not the same as the dough I used for the pizza.

The pizza dough is kneaded till it becomes stretchy while this dough is kneaded just past the point of it coming together. It makes for a more flaky dough rather then a bread like dough.

recipe is for 2-3 calzones worth of dough. Just double it up for more...

1/2 package of yeast
1 TBS water that's 100-110o

Bloom the yeast, I found that when using small amounts of yeast/water the water tends to get cold very fast, to counter this, I used a 2nd larger bowl with alittle bit of hot water in the bottom. I used it as a bath for the smaller bowl holding the 1TBS water and 1/2 package yeast.

2-3 cups flour
1 and 3/4 cup warm water
1 TBS olive oil

Cheese of choice I used mozzarella, monterey jack, and fresh parmesan.
Tomato sauce of choice.

Garlic butter recipe used on the garlic bread. Garlic Bread

1 stick of butter
4 large gloves of garlic, minced.
1 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp dried parsley

Cast Iron skillet and a baking sheet. preheated to 500o when ready to cook.
or
pizza stone, bricks, or tile. pre headted to 500o when ready to cook.

rolling pin, pizza cutter, and fork.

Start off by blooming the yeast, this takes about 10 minutes. You want the yeast to double in size.

In a bowl, add the 1 and 3/4 cup of warm water, 1 TBS oil, and the now bloomed yeast, mix in 1 cup of flour, it will make a nice soup like mixture, when everything is mixed in good go ahead and add another cup of flour, if needed add more flour. you're looking for a pretty firm yet not to sticky dough, very different from the pizza dough we made. Knead the dough by hand for about 1 minute. if you can handle the dough with out it sticking to your hands too bad, then it should be about right.

set the dough ball in a bowl, and place it in the microwave with a cup of heated water. Let this sit for 30-60 minutes or until it doubles in size.

Near the end of the rising time, preheat your oven to 500o. when the oven is up to temp, go ahead and remove the dough from the microwave and flour your working surface, and take about half of the dough and toss it in the flour. add more flour to your surface if needed and roll the dough out. You want the dough about 1/16" thin if it's too thick it wont cook thru and will have a bread like texture, if it's too thin it will fall apart when you try to move it around.

once it's rolled out, add a handful of cheese (cheese of choice) just off center of the dough, add a few spoonfuls of sauce, and more cheese, flip
the dough over trim off the excess dough. take a fork and dip it in flour, fork off the edges and re trim the edge so it makes for a clean look.
put a few slits in the top, if using a baking sheet with cast iron skillet, carefully remove it from the oven and simply pick up the calzone and place it onto of the skillet. If you used enough flour on the work surface the calzone shouldn't stick.

Cook in your oven till it turns a nice golden color, when it comes out of the oven brush it with the garlic butter and serve with a side of tomato sauce.

a tip on the garlic butter, rather then making a large batch, just melt down a few TBS of butter, then add garlic powder and salt to taste. just use your finger and taste it after adding a little bit of the salt/garlic powder if your taste buds say add more welp, go for it.

If the dough is rolled out thin enough it should be kind of flaky not so much bread like.

Note, this is just a basic cheese calzone, who says you can't put green peppers, pepperonis, mushrooms, onion, or anything else in there.
ricotta cheese and spinach, or prosciutto.... list goes on. Just make sure if you use any raw meats you precook them!

[jeff]

Ruler is to give you an idea of how much cheese I used, and how big the dough is.
you could easily get 3 calzones from the recipe but I gave you tons of room for extra dough around the edges.

[jeff]

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[jeff]

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