We love Pizza Night in our house. It is often at the end of the week and is the meal where we abandon place mats, cutlery and table etiquette and instead head to the lounge with paper towel for serviettes, and a good Family Movie, Top Gear episode, Sporting Event or Monster Trucks, (did I mention Sporting Event?) on the TV.

Anyway, back to the pizza. It will usually be one of the following scenarios;

1. It’s been one of THOSE weeks. We are left barely standing and the only energy we can muster is to order, eat and throw away the box.

2. The week wasn’t quite as bad as the above, but busy nonetheless and I have just enough time to pop to the shops, grab some pre-made bases, and basic toppings and head home to assemble.

3. I make up the following dough recipe and we enjoy the whole process of making our own pizzas from scratch. The funny thing is it requires very little effort and takes about 6 minutes to make. The longest time required is letting the dough rise, about 45 minutes. But you can be prepping the toppings or relaxing on the lounge while that happens!

If you have never tried making your own dough, I urge you to. It is oh so simple and I’ve never met a kid who doesn’t like rolling out their very own pizza creation.

We all like different toppings in our house. We have a meat loving child, a basic margarita loving child and other family members who love olives, salami, prosciutto, artichokes, fresh herbs, roasted veggies etc..

As a general rule, I use pizza night as an opportunity to use up leftovers from the week. If I find 1/2 a zucchini, some mushrooms, a bit of ham or leftover chicken, a handful of spinach leaves, a squishy tomato etc.. it all gets put on the pizza! Maybe not the same one, but it has become a useful way of cleaning out the fridge at the end of the week.

The recipe below is made in a food processor. If you don’t own a food processor, here is a link to a basic pizza dough of Jamie Oliver’s that shows step by step instructions on how to mix and knead it by hand. Click here for Jamie’s Basic Pizza Dough

Ingredients

1 x 7g sachet of instant dried yeast (usually found in the isle with the baking products like flour etc. One brand looks like this:

1 teaspoon sugar

1 1/4 cups warm tap water

3 1/3 cups of plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 teaspoons olive oil

Method

Place the yeast and sugar in a bowl and add warm water. Mix and then let stand until foamy, about 4 minutes.

If your food processor has a dough blade, put that in and then add flour, salt and 2 teaspoons olive oil to the food processor.

With the machine running on dough speed, pour the liquid through the feed tube. Keep processing as the dough absorbs all of the liquid. Keep processing as a dough ball forms, that means, the dough will start to pull away from the side of the food processor. Once it has done this, process for 30 more seconds, this will knead the dough.

Grab a large bowl, add 1 teaspoon olive oil to the bowl and grease around the sides of the bowl. Place the dough ball in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave to rise in a warm place for about 45 minutes.

This is what it will look like to begin with….

 

After 45 minutes or so, your dough will look like this…

Place the dough onto a floured surface and punch down. Divide into however many portions you desire, although this recipe make about 3 medium size pizzas, which we find enough for a family of 5.

Roll into whatever shape you like, but it is especially nice quite thin, and place on baking paper lined trays. We have had many interesting shapes over the years, most are almost always not perfectly round!

(Side Note – To get an extra crunch to the texture of the crust, you can lightly dust the baking paper with semolina before you place the pizza on it.)

Add your base, i.e. Jamie Oliver’s 7 vegetable sauce or a store bought tomato passatta. Top with your favourite toppings and a mix of cheese’s like mozzarella, parmesan and cheddar work perfectly as a pizza cheese blend. (I often buy large bags of a pizza cheese blend and keep them in the freezer).

Bake in a very hot oven, about 220-240 degrees celsius for about 9-11 minutes.