thebigfatnoodle

It’s pizza time! Homemade pizzas are yum-o!

Posted by thebigfatnoodle on September 27, 2011 · 7 Comments 

Classic margherita but with a generous handful of fresh basil chucked on top

It’s pizza time!

Home-made pizzas

If you read my post on Sunday about my disastrous whoopsie pies, you’ll know that I’m not much of a baker.

I can cook up a storm but when it comes to baking, I seriously don’t think I have the touch required. That’s why I’ve mostly avoided doing any baking. Until now…

After seeing a number of my other favourite foodie bloggers write about how easy it is to make pizza dough, I thought I’d have to give it a go at least once, and boy am I glad I did!

1)    It really is dead easy to make your own pizza dough

2)    It’s fun to make

3)    I can make pizza now!

I didn’t take any pictures of the dough making process because it’s been done so many times by other bloggers etc so I’ve just posted the recipe I used, which is based on Jamie Oliver’s basic dough mixture (though I’ve used more salt as I like my dough to have more taste!).

Very pleased with my first attempt at making my own pizza dough! Unfortunately we had to have it with no fun mozzarella cheese

Pizza sauce

Unfortunately my husband made an ‘accidental purchase’ at the supermarket and we ended up with no-fun, sorry I meant low-fat, mozzarella cheese. It wasn’t actually that bad, it just didn’t really taste of very much. Thankfully, our home-made tomato sauce saved the day (you can get the recipe for my tomato sauce base here).

The recipe makes enough dough for about 6-8 (thin crust) small to medium pizzas.  Today, we made a classic margherita with a generous scattering of fresh basil, a traditional Tropicana pizza with ham, cheese, pineapple (but with mushrooms) and a herta frankfurter special with a thinly sliced sausage, cheese and mushroom. All of these pizzas were cooked with a generous sprinkling of our freshly dried oregano from our garden – yum o!

Pizza dough recipe

500 grams

1 tablespoon fine sea salt

1 x 7 gram packet of dried yeast

1/2 tablespoon caster sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

325 ml lukewarm water

Tropicana: ham, cheese, pineapple, mushrooms

In a large mixing bowl, sieve the flour and salt until well mixed.

In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil and pour it into the flour mixture. Mix well and when it comes together, use her hands to knead it into a rough ball.

Turn the ball of dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about five minutes until it’s springy and a bit elastic.

Place it back in your mixing bowl. Cover it with a damp towel and leave it in a warm spot for an hour. It should double in size.

This is the bit I love… remove your tea towel and punch the air out of the dough and take it out to knead for a further five minutes.

I prove it again for another 20 minutes before kneading and rolling it out.

Herta frankfurter special: mushrooms, sausage and cheese

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.

According to Jamie Oliver’s recipe, he says to roll them out and leave them for another 15 to 20 minutes but I rolled them out straight away as thinly as I could, spread them with some of my tomato sauce & toppings and cooked them in a 200 degree oven for about 5-8 minutes each.

Might margherita with basil

Lots of love

thebigfatnoodle