Pizza

I love a good pizza but the only take away shops around our place are your regular pizza hut, domino's etc...I really don't like these kinds of pizza so we make our own. About 3 years ago I bought Mr S a pizza maker for Christmas. We didn't really use it that much to begin with but over the last year after discovering how easy it really is to make your own dough, we have used it a lot.

We tend to always make the same. Pesto, smoked chicken, onion, mushrooms, olives, roasted capsicum & spinach. For the dough we use a half mixture of a Jamie Oliver recipe from Jamie's Italy.

Jamie's basic pizza dough

makes 6 - 8 medium-sized pizza bases

800grams strong white bread flour
200grams fine ground semolina flour or strong white bread flour
1 level tablespoon fine sea salt
2 x 7g sachets of dried yeast
1 tablespoon golden caster sugar
around 650ml lukewarm water

Pile the flours and salt on to a clean surface and make an 18 cm well in the centre. Add your yeast and sugar to the tepid water, mix up with a fork and leave for a few minutes, then pour into the well. Using a fork and a circular movement, slowly bring in the flour from the inner edge of the well and mix into the water. It will look like stodgy porridge - continue to mix, bringing in all the flour. When the dough comes together and becomes too hard to mix with your fork, flour your hands and begin to pat it into a ball. Knead the dough by rolling it backwards and forwards, using your left hand to stretch the dough towards you and your right hand to push the dough away from you at the same time. Repeat this for 10 mins until you have a smooth springy soft dough.

Flour the top of your dough, cover it with clingfilm and let it rest for at least 15 mins at room temperature. This will make it easier to roll it thinly. Now divide the dough into as many balls as you want to make pizzas, ie lots of small ones or a few larger ones, but I suggest that 6 is a good quantity for this amount of dough.

I don't actually do this. I put the yeast and sugar into a jug with the lukewarm water and mix. Let sit for a few mins for the yeast to activate then chuck it all into my kitchen aid with the dough hook and mix it for about 10 mins. Then let it rest. It is much easier.