black pizza

I have not touched yeast longer than I had expected given that my stand mixer had been with me for more than a month.

I was worried that my pack of yeast had gone dead, so I tried proofing a small amount earlier this week and got positive results. With that, I made pizza :)

I have done pizza more than a few times in the past, but this is the first time since my bread baking class.  I used the same recipe I always used--and will continue to do so until my weighing scale reaches me, then I can play around with recipes.

'before' shots are never flattering!

I used a mix of wholemeal and unbleached all purpose flour.  On top is a medley of my favourite things like squid ink, cherry (or grape) tomatoes, capers, anchovies and while it is not my favourite as I like making my own, random dollops of ready-made spaghetti sauce. 

Some basil would have been great, but I didn't have any.

black is beautiful

Luckily I had cut the pizza right out of the oven because in a matter of seconds almost, it had gone crispy.  Good luck not shattering crispy pizza--even with a sharp pizza roller.

i knead you

I bit the bullet and made my first dough.  Yes, from scratch.  As in using basic ingredients like flour, yeast, water, what have you.  It was for pizza.

It was a lot of hard work!  I kneaded by hand.  The person I'm with helped me too.  He was so nice wiping sweat off my forehead as I worked the dough.  As some point, he got half the dough and kneaded some.  We spent a good part of our Friday night kneading.

I kept reminding myself and him that Daniel didn't think much of kneading dough, but Mr. Miyagi proved him wrong--it was good (fighter) training.  I would be saying the same if one day, we find each other cleaning windows, only I'd add wash in, wash out.    

I made dough enough for eight, but only baked four.  The one in the photo is literally the first one out of the oven :)

As you can see I can still learn a few things to help with the shape and layout.  I may have placed a certain mozzarella pieces too close to the edge.

more that a rectangle

I made the pizza dangerously thin, only because I want pizza crust that way.   The same is true for the rest of our household.

So it was pizza for (late lunch) for the person I'm with on Saturday.

I was happy to hear him say wow after the first bite :)  He ate half his pizza, then had the other half for breakfast on Sunday.

basil and mozzerella on my home made tomato sauce

For toppings, I made home made tomato sauce.  I thought I'd go all the way homemade, the dough part was the hardest anyways.  So I made a sauce from whole tomatoes, basil and a lot of garlic.  Some olive oil plus salt and pepper too.  Much better that something from a can.

I really enjoyed this project that I think I'd give it another go applying things I've learnt :)