Pizza not so express

I have never previously made an entite pizza from scratch.  I felt really quite virtuous about doing so though.   I was toying with a choice of two pizza base dough recipes of the thin and crispy variety:- a Jamie Oliver recipe from his first book "The Naked Chef" and a recipe from the "Kids Baking" book.

In the end I went with the 'Kids Baking' recipe thinking "if it's aimed at kids from age 6 upwards then how tricky can it be?" And, as hoped, it was suprisingly simple.  The only note of caution I would add is that the time the dough can take to 'prove' can vary depending on a lot of things so don't panic if very little seems to have happened in the time stated in the recipe.

These are the ingredients for the pizza base dough:-
355g plain flour (plus extra for kneading) - I found it better to use half plain flour and half strong white flour
7g rapid-rise yeast powder
2 teaspoons sugar
2 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
240ml (8 fl oz) warm water btween 46C and 52C - I don't (yet!) own a cooking thermometer and so it was guess work wich is a little risky as the wrong temperature could impact on proving the dough (affecting the way it rises)
2 tablspoons olive oil
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (or more olive oil)

To begin, put the flour, yeast, sugar and salt into a large bowl ad mix together using a wooden spoon.
Add the warm water and olive oil and mix together until a 'rough shaggy dough forms' - this description of the dough is taken directly from the book and describes perfectly how the dough looks.

Now it's time to knead the dough - you need to put some effort in to give the dough (and possibly yourself) a good workout!. Keep the surface you are working on well floured.  I used the heal of my hand, pushing the dough away from me before folding back in, turning the dough 'ball' and repeating.  I did this for 10 minutes until the dough  had lost it's stickiness and felt smooth.

I then put the vegetable oil into a clean bowl in which I then placed the ball of kneaded dough ensuring it was coated with the oil.  I tightly wrapped clingfilm around the bowl before putting it beside the fire to rise.

Three hours later (rather than the 45 minutes suggested in the recipe) and my dough had finally doubled in size!  When I made the dough again this week, I replaced half of the plain flour with a strong white flour and found the dough had risen much quicker taking just over an hour.   A good test to see if the dough is risen enough is to poke ypur finger into it and if the indent stays the dough is ready.  If the indent in the dough springs back out leave the dough a little longer before checking again.

Once risen I divided the dough into 3 equal parts and pushed each part into a rough ball shape.  I the used the heal of my hand to flatten each ball before using my fingers to press and stretch the dough into a 'rustically' round (ish pizza shape which was then placed onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment.

Rather than using passata I made a tomato sauce, to spread onto the dough, that is loosly based on Jamie Oliver's tomato sauce, another recipe from his first book - I'll post this recipe another day.  Grated cheddar cheese was sprinkled on top with slices of mozzarella cheese, choritzo sausage and torn basil leaves.

The pizzas were baked in the oven at 230C for 10 to 15 mins depending on the size of the pizza.  Be careful to kee checking them though as they will quickly burn given only a little too long - as I discovered!  Thakfully, two of the three I made survived the ordeal well and were ready to eat.

Yum!  Shop bought pizza will never taste as good again!

This week I've used this recipe again to make 20 bases (yes, 20!!!) for my eldest son's birthday party at the weekend, but that's another story entirely...