Pizza Crust

Friday night take out food challenge is upon me again so tonight we tackle pizza!

I find making pizza dough very satisfying, I don’t know many kids that don’t eat pizza so the diners are happy and I find kneading very therapeutic with a house hold of boys! Five minutes in  my life when I’m busy and cannot be disturbed or I may ruin their dinner, heaven!

I make my own dough but for the toppings anything goes as the boys make their own, they like pizza sauce that comes in a squeeze bottle at the moment, the adults have a little sieved tomato. The boys toppings revolve around meat with mozzarella, to save time, and my patience, I buy a big bag of the pre grated cheese for them.

The pizza in the photo is one of the boys, this recipe makes 4 large pizzas. This dough also makes around 10-15 mini pizzas, perfect for school lunch boxes and birthday parties and they freeze well too!

Ingredients

750g plain flour

4 teaspoons dried yeast

1 teaspoon salt

450mls warm water

Method

Measure the flour, yeast and salt into a large bowl.

Add the water and, using a fork, stir until the dough starts to come together in large lumps.

Flour your work surface and tip the dough out, I use my hand and scrape all the dry stuff off the sides too.

Start needing your dough, it will take 5-8 mins until it becomes elastic, that means, as you need it starts to stretch and not break.

Sprinkle some flour into the bowl you used before and pop the dough in, cover with a tea towel.

Leave for 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 220 degrees Centigrade.

Take the dough and cut it into 4 pieces.

Take the first piece, flour your surface, using a rolling pin, roll the dough out to fit your tin.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Top with passata  or pizza sauce and go wild with your toppings. We sprinkle a little dried oregano over the finished pizza too.

Bake in the oven, keep an eye on it, it may take 5-10 minutes. In our pizza oven it takes around 3 minutes.