Baking Spree cont~

On Mondays at work, lunch time is always a fun time because we'd be inspecting each others' lunches and being in awe of what some people can make. A current student brought his own pizza one time and it sparked a "please send me the recipe to the pizza base" trend. Of course, that is easily done through his iPad and I received a copy of the recipe immediately.

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Which prompted me to make my own pizza. I had always been a little wary about using yeast. Making bread or anything that needs proofing in general. I have every right to be still, considering how that 3 day project ultimately ended with a big fat F.

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Pizza base was simple enough though! First, 1 packet of dried yeast, a bit of caster sugar, 1.5 cups of warm water, around 50 degrees. Yeast is really such a delicate princess, you can't put it into water that's too hot or you'll kill it... so around 50 degrees or so is good. Put it all in a bowl and stir it a bit, then wait 5 minutes or so for it to turn foamy. Doesn't really matter if it doesn't. Then you have 4 cups plain flour and a bit of salt,

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1/4 cup olive oil...

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... plus foamy yeast sugar water mixture.... Basically mix it all up until it forms a dough, and then continue kneading it on a work surface till your arms are sore enough and you feel like you want to kill the dough...

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Um... surface is meant to be all smooth... and it takes about 20 minutes ++ depending on how fit your arms are. Of course, there are (lazy) cheaters out there who will just put this all into a mixer fitted with a dough hook and leave that running while they go eat chips or something. Split it into two, form a ball, slather more olive oil so the surface doesn't dry out.

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Then leave it to proof for about half an hour or so in someplace warm till it doubles in size. Make sure the bowl you put it into is kinda big... cos mine overflowed out of its bowl like some monster.

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After that, all you need to do is (no! Don't punch it!) roll it out into a flat disc and attempt to stretch it out like a pro. I didn't flip it over my head or anything, but I did attempt to stretch it without a rolling pin. Didn't quite turn out to be a disc, but it looks homemade this way!

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Cheated with the tomato base... there are so many recipes out there for easy tomato base, but I can't be bothered with tomato puree and all that, so bottled sauce it is! Mozzarella cheese on top~ slices of it from a big ball of fresh mozzarella...

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Tada! Baked at a high temperature oven (just set the oven to the highest... wood fire oven can go up to 800 degrees or so, obviously home electric ovens can't. Oh, and if it's Seirin Kan, their oven goes up to over a thousand degrees!)

 Verdict? Easy! Sad that oven can't go hot enough though because it really does make a huge difference on the pizza.... I had to bake it for about 20 minutes or so... Seirin Kan bakes theirs for less than a minute! Still, satisfaction of having made own pizza? Can't beat that.