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Homemade Pizza

Homemade Organic Pizza

Ingredients:

Dough:

225g strong white flour

1 tsp salt

1.5 tsp easy blend yeast

glug of olive oil (about 1 tsp)

120ml hand hot water

Topping:

200g passata

1 onion (half for base and half for topping)

herbs (such as oregano, basil or mixed herbs, dried or fresh)

1 ball of mozzarella

Toppings of your choice, such as onion, peppers, olives, tomato, mushroom, ham, salami, sweetcorn, etc, etc, etc. 

Method:

Base:

Put the flour, salt and yeast in a bowl and mix together with your hands.

Add the olive oil to the water and pour into the dry ingredients, mix together until it forms a dough (the least messy way is to do all this in a food processor, or failing that use a spatula to start to bring the ingredients together, getting your hands into the bowl once the ingredients have started to combine. (You can just get stuck in with your hands starightway but be sure to have removed all jewellery ect as you'll get very doughy fingers!)

Once a dough has formed, knead well for 10 minutes until it is smooth and elastic.

Place in a bowl, rub olive oil over the outside of the dough and cover with cling film or a damp tea towel until doubled in size. (This could be a hour or two depending on the weather and the temperature of your house.) Meanwhile make the tomato base for the topping.

Now remove from the bowl, and knead a little more, the air will be knocked out of the dough but don't worry, that's what' supposed to happen.

Place onto a well oiled baking sheet and stretch and press with your fingers until the base is the desired shape and thickness. (My pizzas tend to be square or rectangular as I stretch the base to the edges of which ever baking sheet I'm using, but if you prefer traditional round pizza then go for it, if you get a perfect circle though please send me a photo as I've never managed it!).

You could now go straight ahead, add the topping and cook, but I've had the best results and lightest bases by leaving to rise again under the cling film for another half an hour or so.

Tomato base for topping:

Put the passata into a small saucepan with half the onion (finely chopped) and the chopped herbs (about 1 tsp dried or 1 tsbp fresh)

Simmer until thickened and the onion is soft

Leave to cool until you're ready to add to the pizza.

Assembly & Cooking:

When you're ready to assemble the pizza, spread the base with the tomato mixture, slice the mozzarella thinly and dot over the surface of the pizza then add the toppings. Scatter the topping thinly so that everything has the chance to cook.

Put into the middle of a preheated 220°C oven (200°C fan) and cook for 10 minutes. Check after this time and if the base is not crispy and the toppings nicely browned then cook for a further 3-5 minutes.

When done, serve with a green salad, and let it cool for a minute so that you don't burn your mouth on the cheese (as I have done 100's of times by being too greedy to wait for it to cool!)

Enjoy!

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