Make-Your-Own Pizzas

After a week of us all taking turns to cook each other meals throughout the week (We had sardines, a pork roast, and seared rainbow trout), I decided that it would be a good idea for us all to make dinner together last night. Now, normally I am not a fan of sharing my kitchen space. The old adage 'too many cooks spoil the broth' I found has always been true, especially in the kitchen. Having one or two people to work with is fine, four is just stressful. Especially in a kitchen our size. But we thought of something that would be easy for us to all do together without getting in each other's way or having a 'too many cooks' situation: pizzas.

The plan was simple: I make the dough (as always, anyone who wanted to help could.... but no one did), then I would roll out two pizza bases; one which three of us would top with whatever we should choose, and the remaining two of us would top the other one. Then, once all was cooked, it would become a free-for-all: take whatever slice you could grasp.

Holly and Fraser assembling their 'masterpiece'

The pizzas worked out a treat. We're all of similar tastes so that we topped them with pretty much whatever we liked and then picked off any hostile toppings that happened to find their way onto our slices. What's even better, with the recipes I used I had extra dough left over, which I wrapped in foil and put in the freezer. Most definitely going to be making some pizza next weekend.

Below is the dough recipe that I used, which I adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe. Definitely worth a go, fun for everyone!


Pizza Dough

4 cups/1 lb/500 g bread flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 7g-sachet yeast
1/2 tbsp golden caster sugar
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 cups/11 fl oz/325 ml lukewarm water

1. Sieve the flour and salt together into a large bowl. Make a deep well in the middle of the mixture. In a jug, mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil with the water and leave for a few minutes. Pour into the well.

2. Using a fork, gradually bring in the flour from the sides, mixing all the time, swirling it into the liquid. Keep doing this, bringing larger amounts of the flour mix in, until it all starts to come together. At this point, draw the rest of the flour in with your hands. Tip out onto a clean, floured work surface. Knead until you have a smooth, springy dough.

3. Place the dough into a large, floured bowl, and place flour over the top of it. Cover with a damp cloth and keep it in a warm place for an hour, or until it has doubled in size.

4. Remove the dough to a clean, floured work surface, and knead out the air in the dough. If you don't want to use it immediately, wrap up the dough in cling film and put it in the fridge/freezer.

5. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC/Gas mark 6. Roll out as many pieces of dough as you want pizzas, and leave to sit for 10 minutes. Pop in the oven for 5 minutes, just so that the base cooks enough so that it's not soggy in the middle later.

Makes 3-4 thin pizza bases