Quick and Easy Pizza Dough

I love how you can connect with others on social media particularly on twitter. A recent follower on my twitter account is David from Old Fat Guy (@DiscoDavid9)  He lives in Canada and likes to cook. He has lots of great recipes on his site but the one that caught my eye recently was this recipe for Quick Pizza. I'm not a huge lover of pizza and will almost always choose pasta over pizza if we eat at an Italian restaurant. Over the Easter weekend, we did a lot of work around the house and wanted something quick and simple for dinner. Instead of ordering a takeaway pizza, I decided to give David's recipe a try as it seemed so quick and simple. 

It was also a good chance to make use of ingredients in the fridge to use as pizza toppings. I was terrible at shaping the pizza so mine looks quite 'rustic'. Let's just say that was how I intended it to look in the first place :) I rolled out the dough quite thinly as I prefer a thin base pizza and made 2 different ones. The first had a tomato and pepper pesto as a base and was topped with pepperoni, mushrooms, tomatoes, grated cheese and mozarella cheese. The second one had a bbq sauce base and was topped with ham, cheese and tomato. I baked them on my pizza stone and they tasted absolutely delicious! The pizzas were ready in about 35 minutes from start to finish! That's quicker than some pizza deliveries particularly on a busy weekend. This is definitely going on the regular menu plan and it would be great for parties or when I have guests round. 

I'm sending this to Bready, Steady, Go! hosted by Jen from Jen's Food and Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food For Families. Both Jen and Michelle are keen bread bakers so they've decided to host this challenge together. 

I'm also sending it to Bookmarked Recipes hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes. I bookmarked this and a few other recipes whilst going through David's blog.

It's also perfect for Credit Crunch Munch guest hosted by Michelle from Utterly Scrummy. The challenge is run by Camilla from Fab Food 4 All and Helen from Fuss Free Flavours. Making your own pizza is definitely more cost effective than ordering one for delivery even if you bought all the ingredients from scratch. Hopefully you will have some of these ingredients at home. The bonus is you can custom make your own pizza and not have to pay extra! As mentioned I used up leftovers from the fridge for toppings. 

 

 mix until the dough starts to clump on the hook

 almost ready - you can see that the dough is smoother and sticks to the dough hook 

 my 'rustic' pizza 

 spread base of pizza on dough 

 add your toppings and bake 

 first pizza - tomato and pepper base with pepperoni,mushroom, tomato and cheese 

  second pizza - bbq sauce base with ham, tomato, mushroom and cheese 

Recipe adapted slightly from Old Fat Guy

I used bread flour instead of plain flour as I'd run out of plain flour (shocking but true) 

My pizzas only needed 8-9 minutes to cook as the dough was very thin and I used a pizza stone. 

240g bread flour (or plain flour), divided into 120g x 2

2.25 teaspoon easy bake yeast 

1 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

160ml very warm water

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Pizza toppings of your choice 

• Place a cold pizza stone in the oven and pre heat the oven to 220C or as high as your oven will go.  
• Mix 120g flour, yeast, sugar and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer.
• Add the water and oil to the mixture. 
• Give it a quick stir then add the remaining 120g flour and place on the stand mixer with a dough hook.
• Mix until the dough starts to clump on the hook and continue mixing for another 7 minutes. Set a timer and let the mixer do all the work! 
• Leave the dough to rest for 10 minutes. 
• Roll out the dough in a circle and toss the pizza if you know how! Otherwise, roll it out thinly into a rustic shape like mine.
• Transfer the pizza to the hot pizza stone and spread pesto sauce, bbq sauce or pizza base on top of the dough then add the toppings. I found it easier than transferring a ready made pizza to the hot pizza stone. Alternatively you can use a cake lifter or pizza paddle to transfer the ready made pizza to the hot pizza stone. 
• Bake for about 8-9 minutes or until the cheese is bubbling and the dough is brown on the edges. You may need to bake it longer if your dough is thicker. 
• Slice and enjoy! 
• Note: If you don't have a pizza stone, you can bake this on a pizza pan which has perforations to ensure a crispy base.