Pizza New Year!

Pizza New Year!

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday in the UK. Instead of sitting down to write a post about the New Year, and my resolutions, which are pretty mundane (get fitter, balance work and life, cut down on coffee), I took a look back at my post from the beginning of 2011, figured it still made a lot of sense and decided to take Courage Wolf’s advice:

I was set a challenge at Christmas through the gift of a pizza dish and cutter, so I decided to take on this challenge yesterday, making a pizza from scratch. Here’s how:

Ingredients

For the Dough (Makes a lot of pizza bases, but I wanted to prepare some to keep in the freezer for later)

  • 1kg strong wholemeal flour
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 15g Yeast
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 650ml warm (not hot!) water
For the Sauce
  • Passata (saves time)
  • A good squirt of tomato puree
For the Topping
Anything you like! On this occasion, I went for ham, mozzarella, Cheddar, pineapple and jalapeno peppers. Dust the top of the pizza with dried Oregano.

Method

  • Mix the flour and salt together in a very large mixing bowl.
  • Mix the sugar, oil, yeast, warm (not hot!) water in a large jug.
  • Fold the flour mixture and warm (not hot!) water in the mixing bowl.
  • Use your hands and get in there! knead until the dough is rubbery.
  • Have a cup of coffee and read the paper.
  • Lo and behold! The dough has risen! Now beat the air out of it – you don’t want bready pizza!
  • Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to the right size for your pizza tray/ right thickness for your tastes. I don’t have a rolling pin, so a beer bottle did the trick.
  • In the meantime, heat the passata and squirt in a good helping of tomato puree. Simmer it down to get lots of the water out and spread over the pizza.
  • Sprinkle the cheese and toppings over the pizza
  • Put it in the over for a bit at a hot temperature (the reason I’m not specific is because my oven is rubbish and barely hits 175C), but 200C for 20 minutes should do.
  • Serve hot with beer and a movie!

The finished result was more like a pizza loaf, being rather thick, but still delicious!

Enjoy the health it brings you!

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