A Look Inside My 50 Best Recipes 📊
Last week I mentioned that I'm bringing back my 50 Best Recipes Excel Workbook for Labour Day weekend at the best price I'll offer.
So this week I thought I'd actually show you what it looks like.
The workbook has 50 of my bakery-tested formulas, but what makes it so useful is the Excel itself. You can scale recipes up or down, adjust hydration and inclusions, calculate DDT and keep your formulas organized all in one place.
I use these spreadsheets in my own baking all the time. In fact, the cinnamon buns in this week's newsletter started with my challah formula—I simply used the Excel to scale up the batch I needed.
If you bought the 50 Best last year, you already have it and don't need to buy it again. If you missed it, join the waitlist below, and I'll let you know when the Labour Day sale goes live.
Pizza Night in Muskoka 🍕
We had a pretty serious pizza party this week, about 20 kids and 10–12 adults—and honestly, making pizza for a crowd all comes down to organization.
My favourite pizza of the night was the 'nduja margherita. Tomato, fresh buffalo mozzarella, 'nduja and basil. Spicy, rich, simple, and so damn good.
I made 24 doughs, using my Excel to scale everything so I knew I'd have enough. The dough, sauce and as many toppings as possible were prepped ahead. I'll cut peppers and prep most vegetables in advance, but things like grated cheese I prefer doing the day of.
And fresh buffalo mozzarella? Right before it goes on the pizza.
The mozzarella I used this weekend was actually made in Italy on Wednesday, arrived at Cheese Boutique in Toronto, made its way up to me in Muskoka and was on a pizza Saturday. Pretty killer.
A few things I've learned cooking pizza for a crowd:
Make more sauce than you think you need.
This week I slow-roasted field tomatoes in the wood oven, peeled them and crushed them by hand with olive oil and salt. That was basically it—and it might have been the best tomato sauce I've made all summer.
Always cook a test pizza.
Do this before everyone is hungry. 😂 It makes sure the oven is properly heated, but more importantly, it forces you to run through your entire setup. Did you forget a cutting board? Pizza cutter? Cooling racks? Something to land the pizza on? You'll find out before you're 15 pizzas deep.
Use smaller pieces of wood to maintain your fire.
Once the oven is hot, I prefer feeding it smaller pieces. A big piece can temporarily drop the temperature and then give you a big spike once it catches. Smaller pieces make it easier to maintain a consistent fire.
Use cooling racks.
When a pizza comes out, I put it straight onto a cooling rack for a minute before cutting it. Air can circulate underneath so the bottom doesn't steam and go soggy, and it gives the cheese and toppings a chance to set. You can always flash the pizza back in the oven before serving if needed.
Get ahead when you're feeding kids.
With 20 kids coming, I wasn't waiting until the party started to fire the first pizza. I cooked two cheese, two pepperoni and two Hawaiian pizzas ahead of time. That gave us six ready to go before the madness started.
Once you're organized, you can stop worrying about everything else and just stretch, top, bake and repeat.
And hopefully eat a slice somewhere in there. 😂
50% Whole Wheat Sourdough 🌾
I baked a batch of my 50% Whole Wheat Sourdough at work this week, partly because I’m trying to mix up my bakes a little and make sure I don’t burn through all my bread flour. Rye, whole wheat, different flour blends... sometimes the practical decisions lead you back to breads you forgot how much you love.
And honestly, this is still one of my favourite everyday loaves.
At 50% whole wheat, you get a ton of flavour and the benefits of more whole grain, but you can still get really nice volume, a soft crumb and a loaf that works for pretty much anything toast, sandwiches, dinner, whatever.
A couple of things to watch if you make it: whole grain flours generally ferment faster, so keep an eye on the dough rather than blindly following the clock. And your hydration may need adjusting depending on the flour you’re using—especially if you’re milling your own grain.
For this formula, I like a warm dough around 27–28°C / 80–82°F, a bulk fermentation of roughly 3 hours, and then an overnight cold proof.
It’s healthy, hearty, full of flavour and just a really good bread to have around.
Cinnamon Buns from Challah Dough 🤤
I made a big batch of cinnamon buns at work this week using my challah dough, and they were a HUGE hit.
I scaled the challah recipe up using my Excel, rolled it out and spread it with soft butter, followed by a 4:1 sugar-to-cinnamon mixture. Rolled it up, sliced it and that was basically it.
The nice thing was we could get everything done the day before. We proofed the cinnamon buns, put them into the fridge overnight and baked them fresh the next morning.
For the glaze, I made a really simple one with icing sugar, vanilla and milk. My assistant Helena also made a cream cheese frosting for them and absolutely crushed it.
This is also a good reminder of just how versatile a solid dough formula can be. I use this challah dough for SO many things. Once you have a dough you understand, you don't always need another recipe—you can start using it as a base and play around with it.
I'll share the challah recipe below if you want to turn your next batch into cinnamon buns.
This week in Muskoka 🌲
Honestly, this week I'm just enjoying my days off whenever I can—swimming, hanging by the lake and soaking up the last few weeks of summer up here.
And if you've been reading about Muskoka all summer and wondering what it's actually like, the new Prime show Sterling Point paints a pretty good picture—at least scenery-wise 😂.
I'll leave you with a plum tart and strawberry tart we made this week because they were both too good not to share.
Alright, it's late (11 pm), and I have to work tomorrow. That's it from Muskoka this week!
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Happy Baking,
MJD
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Want to learn more from me? Check out my online video resources 👇
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