I made my first pizza.

I made my first pizza recently. I’m not quite sure why I hadn’t beforehand but when pizza popped up as the #TwitterBakeAlong challenge a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time to have a go. Now I’m left wondering why it took me so long to get round to it and how quickly can I have another go.

I’ve always loved pizza but somehow it’s felt like one of those foods that better eaten in a restaurant than at home. Some of my earliest memories of going to restaurants with friends rather than with family are to pizza houses. Saving up the money from my weekend job stacking supermarket shelves and then going out for a Saturday evening treat. Probably with an underage drink or two as well.

My parents both loved Italy and for years we had family holidays there. The most memorable was when we drove back from Malta to the UK. This meant a ferry from Malta and then a leisurely ten days driving and camping across Sicily, then all the way up the length of Italy. There are many great memories but for me to this day the strongest are eating mussels for the first time in my life and finding that every camp site we stayed at had a bar with a pizza oven that was producing mouth watering food.

There was a time, and my Saturday evening treat memories are probably from then, when most of the pizzas that you got in the UK weren’t really very good. They were chain restaurants with thin, bland and unexciting offerings. Thankfully these days it’s very different, not only have the chains improved but there has been a huge boom in small independents The fact that they have managed to ride out the troubles that so many restaurants have been experiencing recently shows the eternal attraction of good pizza.  Brick Pizza here in Norwich is a prime example of the recent trend  and I would also have to mention Voodoo Ray’s in London. My partners son lives in Peckham and no trip to see him is complete without a Voodoo Ray’s pizza.

If my little ode to pizza has tempted you to have a go this is the recipe that I used to make the base. I’ll leave the toppings up to you but if you’re looking for suggestions I used tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, mozzarella and some herbs.

Ingredients for 2 large pizza bases

• 500g strong white bread flour
• 2tsp salt
• 7g dried yeast.
• 320ml lukewarm water

Method

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 9
• Combine the flour salt and yeast in a large bowl. Gradually add the water, mixing well with your hands to form a dough.
• Shape the dough into a ball, cover with a cloth and leave to rest for 5 minutes.
• Knead the dough for about 10 minutes then split it in half. Cover the two pieces of dough and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.
• Spread some flour on your work surface and spread each piece of dough to about 30cm. Roll it as thin as you can but try to leave it slightly thicker at the edges.*
• Add your topping and bake for approximately 10 minutes.

*I was worried about making them too thick but found that this dough allows you to roll it thin without tearing.