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Showing posts with the label Dorianell's

AI-Generated Dorianell's Cake Shop Reimagined As Pizza Place - January 2025

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I've posted a photo of the original Dorianell's Cake Shop - the bakery operated by my grandparents where my Mom grew up (upstairs) that was originally located in the Back of the Yards neighborhood at 1114 W 51st Street, Chicago, IL 60609.  I asked ChatGPT - and their DALL-E GPT what the place would look like as an updated pizza shop.   Below are a couple of examples that were built via AI: The spelling of things like "CAKKE SHOP" and "CAKE SHORY" are sure tells that AI was the creator, aren't they? A funny thing happened - when I asked ChatGPT to update the pizza in the windows to be 'tavern cut' or cut into squares:  it wasn't able to do that.  It kept giving me back images with pie-cut pizza.   Here's the original Dorianell's Cake Shop - with awning: The next ask for DALL-E is to reimagine Dorinell's into a pizza farm.  That's for another post.

Focaccia Journey - Second Batch With Mixed Results - January 2025

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Last week, I included a mention of _Laceybakes_ - the focaccia baker on TikTok amongst other little pizza-related tidbits in a round-up post .   Her videos influenced me to make a batch of focaccia this past weekend.  I opted for a simple olive oil and garlic butter-topped bread. I was too impatient (and didn't plan well-enough), so I ended up doing a same-day dough - which lead to an underwhelming hole-structure.    Below are a few photos.   This is the second-ever batch of focaccia that I've made - with my original research back in 2022 .   Some notes:  I used the stand-mixer to do the initial incorporation.  That was a mistake.  Think I over-worked this dough.  I did about five-or-so rounds of stretch-and-folds.  That was probably fine.  I dimpled this focaccia *and then* let it keep rising.  Pretty sure...that I should have dimpled-it right ahead of the bake. Also, as I mentioned above, there was no cold...

Nice Cups - Bar Pie - October 2021

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A week later and another Bar Pie shot below.  Last week, I showed a photo and talked about my Bar Pie Progress with a sausage and giardiniera 12-incher (well done, of course) where I talked about what I've been working on since early Spring this year.  This is a 12" bar pie loaded with cupped pepperoni.  I didn't run out for the *right* cheese, so I used what was on hand.  Learned a little bit there - and will go back to my traditional blend.  This one, however, created a little bit of frico that you can see on the bottom right of photo below. Nice Cups. Loaded with Pepperoni. Base chassis of: Crushed Tomatoes, cheese blend. Finished with a heavy hand of post-oven Romano and basil .  Hot Giardiniera added (pre-oven) to half. Menu-wise, I haven't quite figured out how to talk about adding giardiniera to the base bar pie names.  Does it become a different pie? Or should all the base menu pizzas be offered with giardiniera as a 'plus-up'?  Alon...

Bar Pizza Progress - Summer 2021

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August marks six-month mark on my Bar Pizza journey.  Started back in March and have posted a few times including my ' pockmark progress ' and how I've tried both pre-and- post-bake ricotta .  I've recently settled some of that (I'm now using Chellino Ricotta pre-bake on my bbq chicken 'stunt pizza'.  More on that in a future post).    Here are a few recent photos showing my progress.   First, with so little yeast, I'm surprised by this kind of structure: Below, you can see a sort-of edge profile.  I'm happy with the thickness, the ply-ability and the crisp on these pizzas.  I do, however, give them first a cooling-rack rest followed by a post-cut dimple pan.   Here's a little frico below.  I've recently moved away from using any sort of cheddar - as it oils-off differently than the other cheeses I'm using. And the full monty - below.  Cup and Char post-bake basil. Here's another profile below: And the top-down, cheese onl...

Dorianell's Cake Shop - Back of the Yards Chicago

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That's a photo of Dorianell's Cake Shop - once located at 1114 W 51st Street, Chicago, IL 60609.  It was in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, just a few blocks west and one block north of Sherman Park on Racine and Garfield. My sister Vic sent that photo to me.  And it is the first time that I'ver ever seen it.   That's where my Mom grew up.  Upstairs.  And that's her dad's bakery on the first floor.  I've heard a lot about "the bakery", but I never knew it had a name.  Nor what it looked like. Turns out, it isn't *just* a bakery; it is a "cake shop". I can't totally explain it, but this photo makes me really happy.  It also gives me so many ideas and thoughts.    I've talked about what the sign and exterior would look like if I ever did a spot of my own.  I guess I've found the name for my pizza place .  (I'm not doing a pizza place.) The name of the place?  Dorianell's?  That's a combination of my Mom a...