About beaches and Bambinas Pizza Discuss About beaches and Bambinas in the Brick Oven Cooking forums; You know, I am a beach person. I live in Brazil, land of spectacular beaches of any kind. There are ...

[arevalo53anos]

You know, I am a beach person.
I live in Brazil, land of spectacular beaches of any kind. There are the ones with palms, dunes and big extensions of sand fondled by the sea spume. There are the others with exuberant vegetation landed over the sea water. There are the lonely beaches where the sun is the king mastering the song of birds and there are the crowded ones, tenuous line between the ocean and the big city where healthy people show perfect brown bodies.
I had the pleasure to be in many of the Caribbean beaches with the blue-without-end waters and friendly people.
I swimed in Cancun, drinked in Saint Martain, tasted the French food in Martinique.
I played soccer in the California sands; spend lot of times in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I was in Barcelona with the no-tops women challenging the sun.
I could testify the beauty of the beaches of stones from Italy and the wonderful slopes of the Greek islands where I believe be the perfect and most romantic place to see the sunset.
And was a full moon contemplated in the waves of the dew sea in a beach of Ubatuba that gave me the inspiration to try the ‘Bambinas’ (young girls) kind of pizza.
The Bambinas are little rounded calzones with the size of a tennis ball, made with filled pizza dough.
The ones in the pictures were made with Napolitana pizza dough and in a home oven.
I know that this was not a good combination (temp of the home oven and VPN dough). I was in the beach and the dough was resting in the refrigerator, so...
I think that a NY style dough could be a better choice to make the Bambinas, and of course, the high temperature of WFO.
Each dough ball (200/250 grams) was rolled to a round normal size pizza skin that was cross cutting, obtaining four quarters of circle dough.
Each one of these quarters was filled with a drop of olive oil (as to seal it) a full table spoon of fresh tomato sauce and cheeses and fillings like green onions, ham, gorgonzola, pepperoni and so.
The best filling, in our opinion was the one with sliced green onions, little pieces of gorgonzola and lot of catupiry (Brazilian ‘cream’ cheese, highly appreciated here). Wonderful!!!
The process of closing these quarters could be tricky at first; however no too much practice is needed. Once the quarter dough is filled, the edges of the dough are carefully stretched to the side and upward, as to form a bag and pressed together to close the bag as a sphere.
There will be a dough surplus that will be discarded (or baked as cookie). Do not be tempted to maintain this surplus in the base of the Bambinas, the secret of these ones is to maintain the mass with the same thickness.
Due to the weight of filling the final result will be filled semi-spheres kind of calzone.
Just before baking, add tomato sauce and grated parmesan to the top of the Bambinas.
Bake to the highest temperature on a stone in your home oven by three to five minutes until browned or around the 800ºF by 60 seconds in WFO.
Be carefully, the filling be hot!, and more, the Bambinas are highly addictive.
Eat looking the moon on the dancing sea water!!!
Good baking.

Luis

[gjbingham]

Nice post Luis! I'm going to give them a try sometime.