I doubt there are many people who grew up in the US in the 80’s-00’s that doesn’t remember the classic Hot Pocket. I can hear the commercial jingle in my head right now. What I remember is that I loved the ham and cheese, but it would burn my mouth EVERY SINGLE TIME. I seriously never learned to let those cool down. I also remember a distinctly “fake” taste of the cheese, or maybe it was an over processed taste I was getting, and the teeny tiny bites of meat. Well I’m older now, my tastes have changed a bit but I still sometimes crave a warm pocket of dough filled with yummy gooey cheese and some other delectable ingredient. Hence I bring you the Homemade Hot Pocket. In other circles of the world they may be known as a Calzone.
The first step is to make a dough. I use regular pizza dough and lately my favorite recipe for this is on the bag of the Bob’s Red Mill Artisan Bread Flour. Did you know Bob’s Red Mill is here local in the Portland area and I secretly want them to head hunt me. Well, I guess it’s no secret now. Think of all the awesome ingredients I’d get access to, not to mention it’s an employee owned company. Bob was on How I Built This with Guy Raz, one of the best podcast series of all time. It made me realize Bob was legit and his story of how he built his company and followed his call was amazing. You can listen here while you cook. Ok, enough waxing eloquent about Bob.
You need to do the usual, bloom the yeast in warm water. This is just getting the water warm (not over 110 degrees) and add in the yeast and let it mix and start activating. I bought the industrial sized 1 lb yeast bag at the beginning of the quarantine when who knew if the world would end, so now I have to make all the bread and all the dough. I have half in the freezer while I work through the first of it.
Like all baked goods you begin with the dry ingredients and it’s very simple. Flour and Salt. I also add in now a Tablespoon of Olive Oil after trying it in one of the Pioneer Woman’s pizza dough recipes. All pizza dough recipes are incredibly similar. It’s fairly basic, flour, salt, water, yeast and in this case olive oil. After mixing those together in the mixer. I use the dough hook on my KitchenAid. Then you start adding in the bloomed yeast mixture. It should have started to look frothy.
Now you just combine or knead a bit and make it into a ball. I then cover it with a good spray of olive oil so it won’t stick to the bowl and you leave it covered to rest. I left mine about 2 hrs.
It should double in size when it’s ready.
Now you separate it into four sections and form them into little balls of dough.
Now roll out each ball into a nice round circle. If you want to be super true to hot pocket’s of your youth you can try making a square shape since they were rectangles.
Now you fill it up with all the good stuff. I chose ham and provolone, it’s one of my favorite combos. Sometimes I’m all for the pure and simple. Here are a few of my favorite hot pocket combos:
- Ham and Provolone obviously
- Roasted Broccoli, Onion and Cheddar Cheese, you can leave it vegetarian or add in some roasted chicken.
- Chicken, mushroom, sun dried tomatoes, pesto and mozzarella cheese
- Canadian bacon, mushroom, black olive, pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese
- All veggie, mushroom, onion, tomato, red pepper, zucchini and pesto or red sauce and mozzarella would be yummy as well.
Now bake it up for 15-20 minutes at 425 degrees.
Recipe
- 2 C of Bread Flour (regular AP Flour is also ok)
- 1 1/2 Tsp Salt
- 1 Tbs Olive Oil
- 3/4 C Warm Water
- 1 Tsp of Active Yeast
- 3/4 lb of Sliced Ham (This was 6 slices per pocket for me)
- 8 Slices of Provolone Cheese
- You can use any ingredients you wish, but a combo of cheese, meat and veggies is always good. You can add Pizza sauce if you want an Italian style calzone pocket.
Steps
- Combine the dry ingredients for the dough in a large stand mixer bowl
- Combine the water and yeast and let sit for about 5 minutes to activate
- Drizzle the olive oil into the dry ingredients and mix
- Add the water and yeast to the mixer and knead for about 1-2 min until dough just combines.
- Shape into a ball (it will be a sticky dough).
- Cover in bowl with some olive oil and a wet towel or lid.
- Let rise for 1-2 hrs until double in size
- Once risen cut dough into 4 equal parts and shape into dough balls
- Roll out each dough ball into a circle, if you want to be really authentic to the hot pocket make a square.
- Fill with your toppings and pinch together the seams making a pocket.
- Cut a few slits on the top of the pocket to let out steam and brush the top with olive oil
- Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 min until golden brown. Let cool before digging in… or you won’t taste anything for days due to a burnt mouth. 😉