Build Your Own Lunch

This is a much delayed post as I have problem uploading photos to blogger :(

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you would have realised that I need many photos to compose my post as I am really weak at writing. I find it easier to do up a post with lots of photos as my writing is not very different from a Primary 3 picture composition :')

Thanks to Small Small Baker's latest post, I am now able to work around the problem!

My kids love pizza. However, having pizza at the restaurants or even getting them delivered to your door-step can be expensive. So whenever both of them are at home during the school holidays, we will make it a point to build our own homemade pizza. I guess homemade pizza is also a much healthier option.

This time round, I tried another pizza dough recipe from this book "Baking with Kids" by Linda Collister, who happens to be one of my favourite authors. I fell in love with the beautiful illustrations in the book the moment I picked it up from the library shelf. I have bookmarked several of her recipes and this is the very first recipe I tried. I liked the fact that dried mixed herbs is added to the dough as I love the aroma of mixed herbs, be it used in cooking or baking.

I like to involve my kids in my cooking whenever the opportunity arises. I find cooking with my kids very fun, at least it feels good that I am not alone toiling away in the kitchen. My younger child helped me knead the pizza dough with great enthusiasm, while the elder one gave me a hand when it came to slicing up the hams, pineapples and sausages. Both will fight over who to spread the sauce and toppings, and without fail they would smuggle some hams and pineapples while I was not looking.

We made two pizzas from this recipe, Hawaiian...their all time favourite, and another one with my favourite mushroom toppings.

To my delight, the dough was pretty easy to roll out, unlike my past experience with some other recipes. We were able to roll out the the dough till very thin without it shrinking back the moment we lift up the rolling pin.

The resulting crust was rather thin with very crispy edge, although the centre of the pizza was less crisp. Even though I used canned mushrooms, the pizza was still as delicious, the left over sausages gave a nice savory taste to it. We had a fun and hearty lunch that day. I am already looking forward to another round of pizza making soon.


Homemade Pizza Dough

Ingredients:
(make two 12" pizza dough)

200g bread flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
125ml lukewarm water
1 tablespoon olive oil

Method:

1. Place flour, salt, yeast and dried mixed herbs in a mixing bowl. Mix well with hand. Make a well in the centre and add the water and olive oil. Using your hand, gradually work the ingredients together to form a soft dough.
2. Turn dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead for 10mins until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Shape dough into a round ball and place in a lightly oiled mixing bowl. Cover with cling wrap and leave to rise for 1 hr or until double in size.
3. Turn out the risen dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knock it down to release the air. Give it a few gentle kneading. Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Shape into two balls, cover loosely with cling wrap and let the doughs rest for about 10mins.
4. Roll or press out each portion to a round, about 12" in size. Place dough on baking tray lined with parchment paper or on a greased pan.
5. Spread some pizza sauce over the dough to within 1 cm (0.5 inch) of the edge. Arrange a layer of grated cheese (I used grated mozzarella), followed by preferred toppings. Sprinkle the top all over with grated cheese.
6. Bake in a preheat oven at 200 degC for 15~20mins or until the crust has turned golden and the cheese has melted. Serve warm.

Recipe source: adapted from Baking with Kids by Linda Collister