Friday Night Pizza

Does this sound familiar? Usually, on Friday night, after a long week at work, my routine is to get some takeaway and eat it while staring moronically at the rubbish on TV.

But occasionally, I feel like pizza, but there are no decent pizza places nearby, so I end up making my own. And even more occasionally, I make my own pizza bases! This is a big deal for me, as I have not had good experiences with yeast so far, but the recipe I've used here is foolproof even for me. And there are no long waits for the dough to rise, and no heavy kneading.

And best of all, you get to choose what you want on your pizza. Sometimes, I do a pizza blanco, with lite cream cheese, bocconcini, mozzarella and anchovies - give it a try and come to the light side.


Pizza with toppings of your choice
Makes 1 pizza about 30cm x 25 cm or variations of this

Pizza base ingredients:
125ml (1/2 cup) warm water
2 tsp (7g or 1 sachet) dried yeast
225g (1 1/2 cups) plain flour
1 tbsp olive oil
extra plain flour, to dust

Method
1. In a small bowl, stir the yeast into the warm water, mixing until the yeast dissolves. Leave for about 5 minutes, by which time the mixture will become foamy.

2. Place flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add yeast mixture and olive oil. Use a round-bladed knife in a cutting motion to mix until combined. Then use your hands to bring the bits of dough together in the bowl.

3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. It should be smooth and elastic.

4. Preheat oven to 210 deg C.

5. Spray a pizza tray with olive oil spray. Roll out the dough (with a rolling pin) to fit the pizza tray. I made a rectangular pizza, and a smaller round one. Try and roll the dough as thinly as possible if you prefer a thin, crispy crust. Place dough onto the prepared tray.

6. Put toppings onto the bases: tomato paste, proscuitto, chorizo, bocconcini, mozzarella, whatever.

7. Bake in oven for 12-15 minutes or until the base is crisp.

8. Remove from oven. Put some greenery (rocket is good) on top, then cut and serve.

Mix yeast with warm water and leave it to activate;
add yeast mixture to plain flour with olive oil


Roll out the dough (or do the flipping thing, if you can!)

Do-it-yourself pizza toppings.
Get your guests to flavour their own pizzas

This pizza has rocket pesto topped with shaved ham and cheese

Now, tell me which you prefer:

Pizza 1. Tomato paste, ham, cheese, pesto (layered on really thick)

Pizza 2: rocket pesto, ham, cheese (nice round shape, not too heavy)

If you haven't guessed, Pizza 2 was mine - go me, haha! It was delightfully good.