Pizza!

This was my first DB challenge and I must admit that after seeing some of the previous challenges (crepe cake etc) I was very thankful for what appeared to be a relatively simple task.

So with such a simple task in mind who would have thought that 2 very valuable lessons could be learnt.
1. If your printer is broken and your writing down the recipe at least write it down correctly.
2. Once you have ensured you have written it down correctly make sure you read it through first.

So lesson 1 was soon learnt after using ¾ cups water as opposed to 1 ¾ cups. Thankfully I knew almost instantly that the mix was never going to combine and that there was a serious lack of liquid. A quick check later and lesson 1 was learnt.

Lesson 2 did not actually affect the overall result but on reading other peoples posts about completing the challenge I learnt small things like the recipe said to use cold flour. It didn’t seem to affect my dough but I might not be so lucky on future challenges.

I have made fresh pizza dough before but have always worked with warm water. I must admit I was a little dubious about using cold water and putting the dough in the fridge.

The recipe was simple to follow and the dough was soon nice and smooth and in the fridge to be left overnight. However, by this point serious impatience kicked in and I was dreaming about pizza.

I froze half the dough and intended on making 2 large pizza’s, one savoury and one sweet.

I decided to be a bit adventurous and attempt a stuffed crust pizza. My tossing technique left a lot to be desired but I did manage a not too imperfect circle with no holes so I cant have been too bad. I didn’t manage to get a tossing photo though.

I used grated mozzarella to stuff my crust with and placed it in a thin ring around the inside edge of the dough, wet the outer edge then rolled the dough over the cheese into the centre of the pizza to seal the cheese in. I used a tomato reduction for my base and topped with mushroom, salami and mozzarella. I cooked it on my pizza stone and was amazed at how thin and crispy the base was. Definitely an improvement on my previous pizza attempts with different dough recipes.

Unfortunately by the time we had eaten the pizza and I returned to do my sweet one something strange had happened to the dough, it was really big and smelt of strong yeast. I wasn’t sure it was still usable so my vanilla cream cheese apple crumble pizza was left with no dough. I still have a batch in the freezer though so may attempted it at a later date.



Overall I was very impressed with the dough recipe and it was a hit in my household. A successful first DB attempt.


- DM Bell