About 2 years ago my wife made a decision that has changed our lives ever since. NO MORE shop bought pizza! We were going to make our own pizza from scratch.

This was an amazing transformation. The way that everyone gets involved, especially the kids, is truly beautiful. They are so interested in helping to mix the dough and then wait for the magic of it rising. Rolling out their own pizza bases, decorating it with their own toppings and then getting to eat it gives them a great sense of achievement.

Ingredients:

1kg strong white flour or Tipo ‘00’ flour

1tsp fine sea salt

650ml lukewarm water

2 x 7g dried yeast sachets

1tbsp sugar

4tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 carton tomato passata

3 sprigs fresh basil

400g grated mozzarella

This pizza is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe that makes roughly 1.6kg of dough, good for 8 thin bases. What we do is split the dough into roughly 2 x 800g batches and freeze one. The kids get slightly smaller bases at 180g each and we make ours around 220g each. The dough needs to be made around 2 hours in advance to leave time to prove.

Method: Mix the yeast, sugar and olive oil in a jug with the water and leave for 5 minutes. Sieve the flour and salt into the bowl of a mixer and with the hook attachment, switch the mixer on the lowest speed. Slowly add the water mixture to the flour and leave it mix for around 10 minutes, increasing the speed slightly for the last 2 minutes to create a smooth, springy dough. Flour the base of a large mixing bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm area to prove for 1.5 to 2 hours until it has doubled in size. Make the pizza sauce while waiting by blitzing the passata and basil leaves together.

Divide the dough in two, wrap one half in cling film and freeze. Divide the other half into four balls and place each ball on a floured piece of parchment paper. Stretching the dough gives a better crust but if you are struggling with this, you could roll it out with a rolling pin. Try not to get the base too thin as it might split open.

Turn the oven on to 250’C, it needs to be as hot as possible. Spoon the pizza sauce on the base and using the back of a spoon, spread it round leaving an edge. Sprinkle the mozzarella onto the sauce and place toppings on it.  I like chorizo, olives, avocado and rocket or bacon, banana and garlic! Definitely worth a try, it is hugely popular in South Africa.

To get the pizza in the oven, slide the parchment paper with pizza on it onto a chopping board, transfer to the oven by sliding it onto the oven shelf. This can be tricky so take extra care. Alternatively, you could slide it onto a baking tray, or an oven pizza stone if you have one. Cook for about 6-8 minutes turning halfway.  Enjoy