Easy Homemade Pizza Recipe

Cooking is one of my favourite hobbies of late, my love of Nigella in full bloom, I have been attempting beer casseroles, truffle oil pasta, homemade breads and cakes, with my most recent offering being such a success I thought I would share this easy-make pizza recipe with you all. I got given a heart shaped pizza kit for christmas but the instructions were all in Itallian, not very helpful but I have a wealth of cookbooks to help me out.  After a quick flick through them all, I found this pizza dough to be, not only, the easiest to make but also it doesn't need any complicated ingredients. I made this on a whim and had everything I needed in my cupboards.

The recipe I used is Nigella's Pizza Casareccia from her Domestic Goddess book, although I completely changed the toppings to suit me, so i'm not sure how much 'Casareccia' is involved after all!

For the Dough, you will need:

250g Plain Flour

1 Heaped Tsp Easy-Blend Yeast 

1/2 Tsp Salt

150ml Warm Water

2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

On to the actual 'making' - Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and stir in the water and oil to form something on its way to being a dough, then tip the contents of the bowl on to a lightly floured surface. Knead this for about 5 minutes, you should have a light, springy dough but still a bit sticky to touch. (If you have an electric mixer with a dough hook, you can do all the above with it.) Put into an oiled bowl and turn it to lightly cover the dough with the oil. Finally cover the bowl with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place for 1 hour.

Whilst your dough is rising get your topping ingredients ready, the official ones are:

200g Tinned Tomatoes

2-3 Pinches Dried Oregano

4 Slices Fine-Cut Ham

2-3 Gherkins (chopped)

Anchovies (optional)

Fresh Parmesan, Mozzarella or any other cheese of your choice

However, I didn't have most of these ingredients so I used what I had in my fridge. So on top of the tomato mixture (tomatoes, oregano and salt - stirred in a bowl ready to spread on your dough), I mixed fresh parmesan and goats cheese, some packet ham, mushrooms and red onions.

 Turn on your oven to preheat at 240/Gas Mark 9. Once your dough has had its hour, knock the air out of the dough with oiled hands, knead a little and push into a baking tray. I doesn't matter if it's round, rectangular or even heart shaped.

Spread the tomato mixture over the top of your dough and bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Take out the pizza, top with the ingredients of your choice and bake for another 5-10 minutes, your pizza is ready when the edges are crisp. This feeds 3-4 people generously, I would serve it with a side salad. Your finished pizza should look a little like this.