Yes that is the heading of this post!
Yes I am a trained chef yet for the longest time I have dreaded anything that has to do with baking. Its a miracle that I even started a cupcake business #truestory :-)
I have chosen to overcome my fear of making pastries and I started by making pizza. I had made homemade pizza countless times before but I had always made the toppings but bought the dough ready made from supermarkets. So yesterday I put on my big girl shoes and decided to make the dough myself. Seems silly but this has been a lifelong fear, I guess every David has a Goliath to conquer. So yes let me take you on my journey of overcoming the fear of making pastries a day at a time. I yearn to make croissants and pies without second guessing myself. Yes it can be done!
This is my tale.
Exhibit A: PIZZA with many toppings!
The beauty about pizza is that you can play around with it. If you get the dough right, you can put just about anything and thats exactly what I did.
Ingredients:- [makes 4-5 mid-sized pizzas]
For the dough
2 tablespoons dry yeast
2 cups warm water or 1 cup hot and 1 cold
Vegetable oil
2 teaspoons
1 teaspoon sugar
Clear film
So for this recipe, its all pretty basic.
Take the dry yeast and mix with the warm water. Stir it in well and add the teaspoons salt and sugar. Then sieve the flour and put in a bowl. Mix in the water and knead it all well with your hands. Add the about 2 or 3 tablespoons vegetable oil to make sure it isn't too sticky. Once that is done put in a greased bowl and cover with clear film or on a greased sheet of clear film and wrap it well. Put it in a warm place. I put mine in the microwave right after having heated a cup of water. Leave it for 45 minutes until the dough rises.
Heat oven to 180 degrees. Remove oven trays and grease them with olive or vegetable oil.
Once the 45 min are up, take it out of the clear film and divide it in 4 to 5 pieces. Then one by one roll them out on a flour-dusted surface. Take your time. Make sure it doesn't stick to the surface then carefully place it on the greased oven tray. You can then put the toppings on it from here.
The toppings:-
You can put just about anything on pizza. If you're a vegetarian you can put all kinds of veggies like red peppers, onions or courgettes and if you're a carnivore any kind of meat or ham.
I opted to make four types.
-Sweet corn and tuna
-Beef and mushroom
-Ham and red peppers
-Throw it all in pizza
I made a pretty basic tomato sauce that I used on all of them. You can always use other sauces i.e barbecue sauce on the meat pizza and a creamy mushroom sauce on the tuna or chicken pizza.
All in all you can put just about anything.
Ingredients:-
6 tomatoes
Mozarella cheese
Cheddar cheese/edam cheese
Half a pack brawn/ham
Red pepper
2 onions
1 courghette
1 pack mushrooms
Oregano
Basil
Parsley
Black pepper
Mince meat 100 gr
Royal umbrella shredded tuna
1 Can sweet corn
4 cloves garlic
1 packet tomato paste
For the sauce:-
Grate the six tomatoes and chop the garlic. Heat garlic with vegetable/ olive oil. Once they begin to brown slightly, add the spices -half a teaspoon oregano, basil and parsley and a dash of salt, black pepper and stir well. Follow by adding grated tomatoes. Make sure to stir well. Add the packet of tomato paste and continue stirring. After a few minutes, you will notice that the sauce is a beautiful dark red. Remove from heat once the sauce has began to thicken.
Wash the mushrooms since they are almost always filled with dirt when you buy them in the pack. Slice up the onions, mushrooms and the courgette. Cut up the red pepper and the ham.
Sautee the mushrooms and chopped courgette separately with a little bit of oil and some salt.
Cook the mince meat with a little bit of oil and some salt to taste.
Be careful not to put too much salt on any of the toppings since cheddar cheese is very salty.
Leave peppers and onions raw.
Grate the cheddar and mozzarella cheese.
I made the tuna pizza with sweet corn, the sauce, tuna, courgette, the cheddar, the mozzarella and onions.
I made the beef pizza with the sauce, onions, mushrooms, the cheddar, the mozzarella and the minced meat.
I made the ham pizza with the sauce, onions, red peppers, the cheddar, the mozzarella and the ham.
The last pizza was just a mixture of everything!
Bake for about 11-12 minutes. Make sure to monitor the pizza well because I noticed that anything longer than 12 min for me and my pizza would get very hard.
And vuala!!
Enjoy!
I'm planning to have a "make your own pizza" dinner with my friends. That way I plan on making different toppings and the dough then everyone comes and creates their own pizza.
You can always use peperoni, cooked sausage, chicken, etc. Don't feel limited!
Viva Italy!!!!!!! They created pizza so that must be a pretty awesome place!
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