Since I got my early Christmas present (kitchen Aid Artisan[aka. Ferrari, it’s bright red]) I’ve started making pizza dough again. It really is quick and very easy, I’ve almost all ways have the fixings for pizza handy too! I found a recipe I liked and tweaked it a bit, of course. This dough freezes really well and is easy to roll out. So lets get started…
So here is Ferrari in her staring roll … I put one package of yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp if you have a jar like me) and 1 tbsp of sugar into the bowl of my mixer, then add 2 1/2 cups warm water. I turn my mixer on to stir for a few seconds to give it a quick mix. Let this sit for 10 minutes or until its frothy. (it frothy in my picture but it is hard to see)
while the yeast is doing it’s thing we can get the toppings ready to go, this is usually a pretty quick thing depending on what's kicking around in the fridge and cupboards. Tonight's fare is fresh mushrooms, green pepper and some tomato from the fridge, and some pineapple tidbits from the cupboard, and of course Sauce and cheese from there respective hiding places. I try and keep some pepperonis in the freezer in single use portions, how ever saying that we recently had an issue with some I had bought that where not the usual brand and they actually went bad in the freezer.
So this next ingredient is a bit of a weird one … a few months ago I started to substitute All Bran cereal for bread crumbs in my cooking (e.g. meatloaf, hamburgers ect…) its a good way to hide some fiber in stuff with out the troops noticing (it has a bit of a sweet flavour to it) … hahaha and my evil plan worked … I’ve made home made shake’n’bake and they all went back for seconds :D
Any who.. one of the recipes I was using called for 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, not some thing that I keep on hand because I don’t like it :P so I add about 1/2 cup of Crushed All bran in stead, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp salt and the first cup or two of the flour.
Notice we’re using the dough hook and you’ll want to keep the speed low until the flour is mixed in enough that you won’t get a face full. So this is what it looks like so far, it will take about 5 cups of flour or so. You’ll want to add a cup of flour at a time keeping the speed slow enough that the flour stays in the bowl.
Here we have a couple more cups of flour, and that the dough is looking more .. well.. like dough. Keep adding flour until it’s smooth and not sticky.
Ta-da ..Pizza dough! this is what it should look like when you take it out of the mixing bowl, smooth and relatively round. Now grease a normal mixing bowl with a little olive oil or Pam works too. Roll the dough around in the oil to coat it and help prevent it from ticking to the bowl. Throw a clean tea towel over it and leave it in a warm place. Inn my house I find its to cold to get it to rise so I put it in a gently warmed (not on) oven or over the vent on the oven when I have other things cooking. It well take a bout an hour for it to double in size.
Here it is in one of my retro pyrex bowls, nice and poufy. so now I pop it out of the bowl and give it a quick knead, and roll it into a bit of a sausage so I can cut it into 3.
And here you have it 3 lumps of dough! If you are going to use them right away they need to ‘rest’ for 10 minuets (thy rise a little more), if you want to freeze them now's the time They just fit in the sandwich size baggies before they rest. Pop them in the freezer and when your ready for pizza pull it out and let thaw. When it’s thawed continue with the instructions below.
So first things first, you have to prep the pan you’re using. What I do is line one of my cookie sheets with some parchment paper because my pans have seen better days, next I pour a little olive oil into the middle of the paper and use a sauce brush to coat the whole thing with a them layer of oil. When the oil is evenly spread use a table spoon or so of corn meal (that's the yellow stuff you find on the bottom of fresh bread). Okay now for the hard part … place one of the balls of dough in the middle of the pan and get out the rolling pin, I usually just make rectangle pizzas but it was valentines day so I made this one in a heart shape …sort of. If you like thin crust roll it so it nice an thin or roll the edges up to make a more store bought look, we just roll it out to fit the pan and no crust.
Now we throw our toppings at it, some times the kids really do throw the toppings on. While we get the toppings on I’ll preheat the oven to 350 F. It only takes 10-15 minuets to cook a fresh pizza depending on how well done you like your crusts.
This one is just a normal one we do, I like my crust pretty light so there nice and quick to cook up.
Feb 21 – Full; My very full cup of tea
Feb 25 – On your bedside table; Yup that’s my bedside table.
Feb. 27 – Playing; Meet Shamus, he likes to play with tissue paper.
Feb 28 – upside down; Mmm gummy worms :) 
