While I quite like a nice pizza, I have come to loathe the supermarket pizzas with their overpriced, soggy cardboard structure and dubious toppings. Being a frugal kind of bloke, I won’t buy a pizza in any of the dodgy looking pizza places in town either. No other options left apart from home made pizza!
Our bread maker has a setting for pizza dough and I was sure I could rustle up the ingredients, so I decided to have a go. Initially this was under Rachel’s supervision in explaining how the bread maker works – actually it’s dead easy. Just follow the recipe you want, select the program you want and and then press START.
So easy, what could possibly go wrong?
Ingredients should always be placed into the pan in the right order, apparently this makes a real difference. Make sure the mixing paddle is in place too.
- 0.5 teaspoon of yeast
- 11oz strong white flour
- 0.5 teaspoon of sugar
- 0.5oz of butter or vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon of milk powder
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 210ml water (slightly lukewarm is good)
It takes about 45 minutes for the dough to be ready. So plenty of time to get everything ready for topping the pizza. I used the following but really you can have fun and experiment or simply use what you already have and like…..
- spread some tomato purée over the prepared dough, maybe a little ketchup if you like it slightly sweeter
- a few ounces of grated cheese
- a little oregano sprinkled over
- sliced mushrooms
- sliced tomatoes
- chopped up spring onions
- handful of olives
Actually, before you get creative with the toppings, I almost forgot to mention the dough needs rolling out and remember to use a little flour to stop it sticking to your worktop and rolling pin. Next rub a little vegetable oil on each side of the pizza base. Have fun throwing the toppings on.
Cook in a hot preheated oven, middle shelf, at 220c for about 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on it as it can quickly burn.
The cost? Probably about a £1.50 to £2.00. Tastes even nicer than the commercial pizzas costing much, much more. And you have the nice satisfaction of having made it yourself!
Just as a little PS, here’s a loaf I made earlier. It takes 4 hours in the bread maker and is lovely bread. So nice knowing what’s in it and how it doesn’t include the excessive salt and other crap used by commercial bread makers.
PPS we have a Panasonic bread making machine. We keep them until they wear out and simply buy another. They easily pay for themselves. I might blog about this another time but for now, don’t waste your money on cheap bread makers or cheap flour as it just doesn’t work. More to follow…..