Culinary Adventures

Last night my son decided he wanted pizza at 11:30 pm. I think I still need to figure out how to make him eat a proper meal before sleeping. Most days he eats reasonably well, but occasionally he refuses to eat anything I suggest. This had been one of those days. Anyway, here he is awake, cranky and demanding pizza in the middle of the night. I know the solution. If I want him to sleep without fuss the best thing is give him his pizza. It made me wonder if a 2 year old could also have midnight cravings. Obviously they can. Well I trudge downstairs with him to figure out what to do. I do know that the bread pizza tactic is not going to work. He wants the real thing this time.

Luckily I had made pizza dough and stored it in the fridge over the weekend instead of the freezer. What would I do with out my bread machine? The rest was easy. Just spread some pasta sauce on a rolled out base and sprinkle with grated cheese. 10 min later pizza is ready. Phew!! A relief.

Pizza dough

Ingredients

Flour - 3 1/2 cups
water - 1 cup
yeast - 2 tbsp
honey - 2 tbsp
olive oil - 1/4 cup
salt - 1/2 tsp

Method

Put all the ingredients in the bread machine in the order suggested by the manual and select the dough option. That’s all to it.

If you are using a food processor/ stand mixer / doing it by hand, make sure the water is warm( approx 95^oto 115^o). Mix the salt and honey in the water and then mix in the yeast. Let it stand for 5 to 10 min.

Now take a cup of flour in a mixing bowl and mix in the oil and the yeast mixture. Slowly start adding the remaining flour. Knead the dough a little and put it aside for about 45 min.

The dough should have doubled by now. Now knock down the dough and roll it out into pizza bases. You can make thick or thin base and also mini pizza bases. The choice is yours. Also prick the base with a fork to prevent it from puffing up in the oven.
Pile with your favorite toppings and bake in oven at 375^o for 10 -15 minutes. Longer if the base is a little thicker. I usually prefer a thin crust.

Tags: pizza, bread

                            

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006 at 4:03 pm and is filed under Bread. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.