PIZZA!!

I

Today my oldest son's best friend was over and I'd promised him that we'd make pizza again next time he was here so that's what we did. I made the dough and put it in the shapes then I let the kids loose to add toppings of their own choosing. The pizza above was the one shared by my oldest and his friend.  The ones below are made in a dish that has 5 "boat" shaped holes that I filled with dough and me and youngest put toppings on them. These end up as "deep pan"  pizza's while the top one is more Italian style.

Ingredients for the dough (you can also "cheat" and use a packet to make the dough but it's so easy anyone can do this) enough for the top pizza:

• 15 gram / 1/2 oz fresh yeast or 1 packet active dry yeast
• 2/3 cup / 150 ml warm water (Not hot! - hand warm)
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt

How to make the dough:

1. In a small bowl put the yeast and warm water mix well and leave for about 10 minutes.
2. Put the flour and salt into a bowl and mix.
3. Add the yeast and mix till it's all absorbed
4. Knead the dough till it well kneaded (5 minutes or so)
5. Put the dough back into the bowl and cover with a clean cloth or with cling film and put in a warm place. (I find above the central heating works OR on a windowsill of a closed window in the sun OR on the cooker with the oven turned on to the lowest setting) Leave for an hour.
6. After that time give it a gentle knead for about 1 minute.
7. Oil the tray your are going to bake the pizza on or line it with greaseproof paper to avoid having to scrape the pizza off the tray *wink*
8. Then you can roll out the dough into your desired shape. I pressed the dough into the boat shapes but rolled the dough for the larger pizza after pressing it as flat as I could first by hand.
9. Preheat the oven to   230 C / 450 F
10. Give it 10 minutes rest as dough tends to shrink a little after rolling before going on to the toppings.

The toppings basically you can use anything you have around the house as a topping. This is what we used:

•  Tinned chopped tomato mixed with some French herbs and pepper for the tomato sauce on the base.
• Cheese - this can be cheddar, mozzarella or something else that melts nicely. We used mature Gouda as that's what we had in the house.
• Salami
• Ham
• Turkish sausage
• Sweet green pepper freshly picked from the garden (oddly enough the kids will eat this but not shop bought)
• Sliced onion

How to proceed:

1. Put some tomato mix on the base - a thin even layer.
2. Scatter cheese over the base
3. Put toppings of choice on top
4. If, like my kids, you like extra cheese put more cheese on now
5. Place in the oven for 15 - 20 minutes

Enjoy!