Pizzas are such a popular dinner, and these are super healthy, speedy versions using homemade oat ‘flour’ without any yeast, so there’s no waiting about for the dough to prove. Let the kids top their own oat pizzas using whatever you have in the fridge. These are even delicious cold in lunchboxes the next day. READ MORE
Do you remember double art on a Friday? I do. It was magical. The opportunity to spend half an afternoon before the weekend in some kind of wonderful world of zen; colouring, painting, modelling clay. It was the perfect start to the weekend. A treat! A welcome break from Monday’s double physics and Wednesday morning’s double whammy of maths and chemistry. READ MORE
There are some things in life that once you upgrade, you simply can’t go back. Shoes spring to mind, no one wants squeaky cheap shoes. Men too; after kissing a lot of frogs it’s refreshing to find someone even slightly close to a prince. And pizza, well the last time I ordered take out pizza I remembered all the reasons I do it so rarely. Soggy bottom, too-salty meat and indigestion. Oh and a feeling of having been fleeced – £15 for essentially bad cheese on soggy toast? Pah!
So here’s my pizza recipe – it’s the one I bang on about all the time. If you can’t find buttermilk despair not, your pizza will just have a slightly less sourdough style taste. You could just add a teaspoon of lemon juice to some milk and use that instead.
FYI: The gorgeous new updated photo is not by me, I wish it were, it’s by the lovely Lyndsey James.
One year ago: Christmas flapjacks and Walnut, bourbon and treacle tart and All about cake pops
Two years ago: Father Christmas’ Bakewell tart and Chocolate cupcakes and truffle icing and Halloween bloodshot eye truffles
Three years ago: Chocolate, cherry and hazelnut flapjack and Lazy fish pie and Greek green beans
Buttermilk crust pizza
Makes enough dough for 6 large pizzas though depends how thin you roll them.
Ingredients:
To make the dough pop the flour, yeast and salt together into your food mixer bowl. Whizz together using the dough hook attachment set to a low speed. Then turn the speed to low and pour in the buttermilk and oil. Next add the water and leave on low speed until the dough looks elastic. Takes about 4 minutes. Remove from the mixer, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place until it’s doubled in size. This takes about 2 hours in this house but in most normal warm places takes about 1.5 hours. (Warning: this dough is stickier than most! Don’t worry if it doesn’t look as smooth and elastic as normal bread dough does. This is normal.)
Now you can knead by hand of course but this dough is sticky, so if you’re game then oil your hands, oil your work surface and use a dough scraper. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Once the dough has risen pop the bowl back into the mixer and knead using the dough hook on a low speed for about 2 minutes until your dough looks and smooth again. (By hand knead for about 4 minutes.) Now it’s ready. Either divide into pieces, put into plastic bags and freeze for a rainy day or start making pizza.
To make great upgraded homemade pizza turn the oven to the highest setting and make sure the shelf is at the top. Take some semolina and put a handful on your work surface, then take your slightly sticky pizza dough and cover the whole thing in semolina – all sides. Then you can start rolling. (Use a wine bottle if you don’t own a rolling pin.) The aim is to get it as thin as possible without breaking. I never worry about the shape. Any shape pizza goes in the Bell house.
Put your dough onto a baking sheet making sure the edges don’t escape over the edge. Nobody wants burnt crusts. If you’ve made an especially large pizza then fold the dough into half and then quarters to transfer it to the baking sheet. Spread some tomato sauce over the top (I simmer a tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 tbsp of tomato puree, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp oregano, 1 tsp salt and 1 tbsp of sugar on the hob for about 30 mins but you can use ready made stuff) and then some mozzarella cheese and whatever toppings take your fancy. Mr B likes some chilli chopped into the tomato sauce and then a general meat based topping. I like ham and pineapple but I was almost a child of the 70s so that might explain that.
Bake in the oven until the edges look brown and crisp and the topping is suitably cooked. About 10 minutes but keep checking. Serve with napkins and a large pair of scissors for cutting. Much better than those little pizza wheel thingies.
Brotherly love is a wonderful thing. I witness small acts of kindness, adoration and pain on a daily basis since pushing our 9lb 3 oz bundle of cheek and brutishness into the world just over 2 years ago. The baby of our family is the archetypal little brother. He whinges, he bites, he shouts and he bounces through life. He is our blonde bombshell of impish pleasure. But there are a few things I just don’t understand about this sibling thing.
Today I have witnessed the following:
– Little brother standing on the back of big brother. LB smiling whilst BB cries out for help.
– LB gather a plate for BB even though he doesn’t need one. (“It’s for my bruvvver”)
– LB hit BB on the head with a wooden train and reduce BB to tears.
– LB hug BB hard around the neck proclaiming “I love my bruvver.”
– BB chase LB around the house, LB giggling like a loon.
– LB eat all his dinner time dough balls and then proclaim “I want more. I want my bruvvvers.”
Reader, I am an only child. I will never get it. They love each other, they hurt each other, they defend each other, they ignore each other. Amazing. What lucky boys.
One year ago: Bake me not chocolate cake and Experimental banana loaf
Two years ago: Light and sweet carrot cake and Peanut brittle
Dough balls
Makes between 60 and 90 depending on how small you make them. I know that’s a lot. May I suggest you make the dough and either freeze half of it just after first proof stage, or use the rest of it to make pizza. Or just halve the recipe though that does involve having half a sachet of yeast hanging about which is the kind of thing I find annoying.
Ingredients:
Easy peasy. Pop all the ingredients into a bowl and mix well with your hands or a dough hook. Once combined knead for 4 minutes in a stand mixer (with the dough hook again) or for about 7 – 8 minutes by hand on a greased work surface. Don’t add more flour – this will make the dough balls less than light. Then pop back into the bowl once the dough is smooth and elastic looking and feeling. Cover the top of the bowl with clingfilm and leave to double in size. Then knock the dough back by flipping it over and squashing it down with your hands.
Take a roasting tray (better than a baking tray as easier to drape with clingfilm without restricting the growth of the dough balls later on for the second proofing) and sprinkle with semolina. Then using scissors, cut pieces of dough about the size of a walnut and roll between both palms in a circular motion. Then pop onto the semolina lined baking tray. You can pop a little flour on the roasting tray instead to stop the dough balls from sticking but they’ll be less crunchy on the bottom.
Once you’ve rolled the first batch and filled your roasting tray, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise until double the size. The time will depend on the warmth of your kitchen. Then bake in a preheated, very hot oven for about 10 – 15 minutes. Check on them after about 7 minutes to be on the safe side. My oven is officially rubbish and only goes up to 200C, I would prefer 220C for these babies but you can’t have it all.
Serve with homemade garlic butter (butter with crushed garlic added for those who are time poor… butter with crushed roasted garlic in it for those with a little more time) as a starter or with Nutella as a pudding. We even dipped ours in yoghurt today. We’re experimental with dough balls.
Holly Bell 