Pizza

Making your own pizza is a joy and gives you the opportunity to go crazy with the toppings. Why not give this recipe a go this weekend, take some pics and post them to my facebook page, the most inventive topping wins a prize!

I have been busy making pizza's with the children for the last 2 days and taking lots of photo's but have lost the lot in a ridiculous technical error that took my poor husband all night to rectify. Miranda is so right when she says that once you have a baby you loose the ability to work anything even slightly technical but gain a draw containing cards for all occasions.

I will add some photo's over the next day or so but in the meantime here is the pizza base and tomato sauce recipe.

Ingredients

Pizza base
1 kg Strong white bread flour
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 x dried fast active yeast sachets
1 tablespoon caster sugar
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
650ml water lukewarm

Tomato sauce

4 tablespoons pasata
2 tablespoons tomato puree

Makes 6 large or 8 medium pizzas


Method

Sieve the flour/s and salt on to a clean work surface and make a well in the middle, if this fills you with dread then use a very large bowl. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil into the water and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork, bring the flour in gradually from the sides and swirl it into the liquid. Keep mixing, drawing larger amounts of flour in, and when it all starts to come together, work the rest of the flour in with your clean, flour-dusted hands. 

Knead for 2 minutes until you have a smooth, springy dough.

Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl and flour the top of it. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm room (I put mine next to the radiator) for about an hour until the dough has doubled in size. 

Now remove the dough to a flour-dusted surface and knead it around a bit to push the air out with your hands – this is called knocking back the dough. You can either use it immediately, or keep it, wrapped in clingfilm, in the fridge (or freezer) until required. If using straight away, divide the dough up into as many little balls as you want to make pizzas – this amount of dough is enough to make about six to eight medium pizzas.

Timing-wise, it's a good idea to roll the pizzas out about 15 to 20 minutes before you want to cook them. Don't roll them out and leave them hanging around for a few hours, though – if you are working in advance like this it's better to leave your dough, covered with clingfilm, in the fridge. However, if you want to get them rolled out so there's one less thing to do when your guests are round, simply roll the dough out into rough circles, about 0.5cm thick, and place them on slightly larger pieces of olive-oil-rubbed and flour-dusted tinfoil. You can then stack the pizzas, cover them with clingfilm, and pop them into the fridge.

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7 22oc 425f

Mix the pasata with the puree and spread liberally over the base, pile your topping onto the base and bake in the oven for 12 minutes. Don't forget to use mozarella cheese for the soft stringy finish.

Little helpers

Dough balls, just add garlic butter!

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  Sandie made a achberryepper.tom something for everyone

  
  

  

  Fiona stuffed her crust with mozarella

  
  

  

  Claire and the children with some yummy pepper and mushroom