Calzone DISASTER!!

[Holli]

I've finally gotten up the courage to try some of the more in depth recipes in Alissa's book. I spent a LOT of time making her calzone recipe. All the ingredients tasted wonderful. I dehydrated the crust like instructed in the book...however, the crust was very large and it was getting extremely late and I wanted to assemble it all and go to bed. I kept checking it and the flax crust still seemed a pit gooey, but it had been in there for 5 hours so I figured it would be fine. I put it all together and about 16 hours later I took it out for dinner (it said to assemble it and dehydrate for 14-18 hours). The whole house smelled wonderful, mostly the curry in the crust, but when I cut it open the smell changed from wonderful, to horrible! :eek:

Still, after all that work I had to try it. It was the first time I ever had to spit out my own food. Something had clearly gone rancid, but I don't know what. It could have been that I didn't dehydrate the crust enough before applying the filling and sealing the calzone. It did taste a bit like old avocado (from the spinach dip), but it was accompanied by a very bitter, strong rancid flavor I've never experienced before.

Has this happened to anyone before?? I know that cooking things at such a low temp is like leaving your food out in the sun, right? I've never dehydrated something so long, but that's what the recipe said to do.

Anyway, it was so much work and time and money...I had to throw the whole thing in the trash! I'm just hoping to figure out what I did so I can not repeat this experience again. :(

[Conscious Midwife]

I always follow my own instinc when dehydratig things.

Cook books are great guides but humidity differs everywhere and if you open your dehydrator a lot then you also need more time to build back up the constant temp

[rawbutterfly]

Did you use the crust with buckwheat? I have tried two things with buckwheat that went rancid in the dehydrator. Someone suggested making the stuff smaller so it can dry before turning bad, but I don't know how that would work with the calazone. Sorry, I guess I am no help afterall!:confused:

[tvillemom]

I understand. That crust is so HUGE, I halved my recipe, and cranked up the dehydrator for the first hour (to about 140) and then cut it down to 115. I like to dehy. my crust till it's dry enough to turn over, and then dehy. some more...and when it feels dry, but not stiff, then I put in the filling and fold it over. It does sound like something spoiled. I probably over dried mine before I put the filling in, but MY CALOZONE TASTED WONDERUL THIS WAY. I hope I helped. Don't be discouraged. After a couple of times of making breads or crackers that I hated, I realized that I don't like my breads or crackers mushy. I have made Alissa's burger buns, in a bun shape, and then HATED THEM, so I cut them in half (so they would not be as thick) and dehydrated them until they were more like a thick cracker. Now I make all my breads as crackers, because I KNOW that for ME, I don't like breads because they are generally too mushy.

Good luck, and don't give up. You will figure out what you did wrong (which is sounds like to me you know what happened) and you can fix it.

[Holli]

Thanks Wendi. I will keep at it! It is a great recipe...but yes, cutting the crust in half and dehydrating longer would have been a MUCH better idea. Live and learn. :)


I did use the buckwheat, rawbutterfly. Maybe that was it...hard to tell.

[RawSinger]

Hi Holli-

I recently attempted to make Alissa's burger buns (which have pretty much the same recipe as the crust of the calzone). I followed all the directions to a "T" and was looking forward to trying them last night. Unfortunately, they were HORRIBLE!! It was probably one of the worst things I've ever tasted. It tasted very rancid as did your calzone. So I understand the shock and disappointment. It's quite possible that something went bad in the process of dehydrating because the burger buns were inedible, as I'm sure was your calzone. It may be due to that and/or, I hate to say it, but it may be a bad recipe. It's very discouraging.

[Rawkinlocs]

I have made both the calzone and the buns many times and it's a GREAT recipe. The problem is two-fold:

1. You may not be rinsing the buckwheat long enough as well as letting it sit out sprouting for too long. Buckwheat can be kinda funny-acting as it forms a sliminess when soaked and you have to really rinse it WELL during the sprouting process or else it will get funky on ya AND end up souring in the dehydrator...

2. You may need to follow the advice of Excalibur (as well as Gabriel Cousins) and crank the temp up for the first couple of hours (they both say that the food won't get to that temp.- 145 degrees or so...I usually do around 125-130- during that first two hours of dehydrating) and then turn it back down to reasonable temps as indicated in the recipe.

During my first attempt at making the calzone, it did ferment on me but since employing those two things I mentioned above, it's been smooooth sailin'! :)