The dough is yeast based
Once kneaded put in a greased bowl to double in size
I avoided making the pizza recipe in the Edmonds on page 158 because I use this pizza dough really successfully but not technically the way it says. My fambam like their pizza thin and crispy and when I make them this way I get between 8-10 decent sized pizzas out of one batch of dough. I avoided it because I knew I was going to have to use the dough recipe as written and use the whole batch to make one 25 cm pan pizza with the one batch.
I knew the pizza would be ridiculously thick and yes, I could have just reviewed it the way I use it, but it would not be doing this project under the guidelines I have set myself. I have set out to follow each of the recipes exactly as written to give an honest review.
I love throw it all in recipes
Cooking down the ingredients
The dough is easy to make but does take a bit of time as it is a yeast based dough so needs time to rise. The recipe also has a tomato sauce recipe with it.
The blended sauce
This recipe is one of those throw it all in a pot jobs and the resulting sauce had a lovely complex and full flavour.
It was a lovely way to use some of the tomatoes I had picked from the greenhouse.
The dough is soooo thick!
Assembling the pizza the base was indeed very thick when I placed it in the pizza pan. Mine was actually a little bit larger than 25cm but it was still really thick. I put a generous layer of the sauce on but the sauce recipe makes a huge amount. Way too much to go on one pizza. I imagine the mixture would freeze well and would keep for up to five days in the refrigerator. I assembled the recipe as directed. Cheese, ham and then mushroom. I like to put more cheese on top of my pizzas but I resisted the temptation.
As the pizza was cooking my worst nightmare was realised. This pizza base is really really thick if used this way. The finished pizza actually had a yucky yeasty smell because it was so thick. It tasted awful. I ended up throwing it away. I knew this was how it would be but I had to test the recipe as written.
The base made the pizza smell yeasty and yuck
The base was so bad I threw the pizza out.
So, this is how I use this dough. I make the dough as written and then instead of rolling it out to fit one pan I divide the dough into four and then each quarter into two. I then roll out each ball of dough into a thin base. Tonight I used the tomato sauce I had made but usually instead of tomato I use either a mango chutney or apricot sauce. I then cover the sauce with a little cheese. I usually keep the toppings simple. I add shredded chicken and some chopped capsicum and then sprinkle on more cheese before cooking. They take around 12 minutes to cook and as I said they come out golden and crispy. These pizzas are always a huge hit when I have guests over.
In summary, this pizza recipe is great – but don’t use it to make one pizza! If you don’t like thin pizzas I suggest dividing into three instead.
Until next time. Happy cooking! 🙂