American Style: Deep Pan Pizza (Egg Free with Wheat Free Option)

Looking for a hearty, comforting dinner? Why not try this recipe for deep pan pizza! (It comes with my fiancé's approval, as seen below)

Autumn and Winter are full of party occasions and opportunities: in my family, even without the traditional holiday events, there are three birthdays in October and November. This time of year is a real season of festive eating!

When we were kids, we had normal kids' party food at all these kinds of occasions: sausage rolls, cocktail sausages, chips, and either hamburgers, or pizza. In the 1990s, supermarkets where I lived began to stock cook-from-frozen pizzas, and normally they had big, fluffy bread bases. I didn't see a thin and crispy based pizza until I was in my mid-late teens.

The most commonly eaten brand was Goodfellas, but there were many others, including supermarket own branded pizzas. I have very fond associations with thick based pizzas, even though when I eat shop bought ones now my adult taste buds aren't able to taste what was so amazing to my childhood taste buds....

I've been meaning to try a deep pan pizza for a very long time: I popped it on my list of projects to try about this time last year, I just never had the opportunity to try it. I was reminded to try it when I was watching Chef John's Detroit style pizza video on Youtube earlier last week.

My pizza differs from his, insofar as it's just a regular (well, what I consider regular) pizza with a thicker base. I use a completely different dough recipe to his, and different toppings. But, I was inspired by his idea to rise the bread dough in the tin it will be cooked in, rather than in a bowl.

DIFFICULTY

Intermediate


INGREDIMENTS

For the bread dough

6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres) warm water

One ¼ ounce (7 gramme) sachet of dry active yeast

1 tablespoon (15 grammes) caster sugar

½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) salt

1 ounce (30 grammes) light olive oil, or sunflower oil

12 ounces (340 grammes) plain flour: wheat or spelt

½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder

For the topping

Roughly 5 or 6 tablespoons (2½ or 3 fluid ounces; 75 or 90 millilitres) tomato pasta sauce, with herbs and garlic

Pinch of sugar

Salt and black pepper

Roughly 4 or 5 ounces (115 to 140 grammes) grated mozzarella cheese

Sliced meat of your choice: pepperoni, salami, ham, chicken, sausage, etc.

Thinly sliced vegetables of your choice: pepper, tomato, mushroom, courgette, etc.

HOW-TO

• Grease a 9 by 7 inch (23 by 18 centimetre) deep baking tin with a tablepoon (15 millilitres) of sunflower or light olive oil. Set aside for later
• In a large mixing bowl, mix the yeast, sugar, oil, and warm water together. Add in about half of the flour and mix into a sticky paste. Cover, and leave to rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size and very spongy in appearance.
• Once risen, tap the bowl sharply on the counter top to release the air. Sieve in the half of the remaining flour, the baking powder, and salt and mix together with a wooden spoon until combined.
• Sprinkle some of the remaining flour on the work surface, scrape out the dough in the bowl, and sprinkle some more flour on top. Knead the dough, adding flour only if you need to, until you have a smooth, tacky dough. You may not need all the flour, so don't add it all in at the beginning.
• Knead the dough for a good 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Press the dough into the bottom of your oiled tin and allow to rise for 30 to 40 minutes, or until doubled in size once more.
• Once it has doubled, press the air out with floured hands and spread the tomato sauce on top, leaving a half-inch (1 centimetre) border around the edge of the pizza. Decorate with your toppings.
• Set the oven to preheat to 190°C (375°F, Gas Mk.5) and allow the pizza to puff slightly while the oven is heating. Once the oven is hot enough, bake the pizza on the centre shelf for 30 to 25 minutes. If the toppings are browning too fast, cover the pizza with a piece of tin foil.
• When fully cooked, remove from the oven and gently transfer the pizza to a wire rack. This will stop the crust from getting soggy with condensation.
• Serve hot from the oven with side salad, or chips.

Valentine's Day: I ❤ Pizza! (Wheat-, Egg-, and Dairy Free Base)

What's sweeter than being able to share a couple sized meal with your sweetheart? Nothing, which is why I made these cute little pepperoni pizzas!

Whenever I think of romantic candlelit dinners, I always think of Italian food for some reason. Maybe it's because in The Lady and the Tramp the dogs eat spaghetti and meatballs, or because there was an advert for Ristorante pizzas on telly when I was a kid that showed a couple romantically eating pizza in a swanky Mediterranean open air restaurant, or because most of the high end restaurants in Limerick are Italian, I'm not sure. Although, it's not the most dignified or romantic thing to eat, and the fact it started life as peasant food makes it even more ironic.

However, I can tell you categorically, I love pizza. Especially Chicago style pizza with thick, fluffy bases.

I had promised in my bread rolls post that I'd do a pizza recipe, and I always deliver (well, sometimes)! So, I thought I'd try and do something nice and Valentine-y with pizza.

To make these you will need these ingrediments to make 3 individual pizzas, or one 9 inch (23 centimetre) pizza:

• Half a batch of dough, made with this recipe, with half the directed amount of sugar
• Sliced pepperoni, or salami
• 3½ ounces (100 grammes) grated mozzarella cheese
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) grated mild cheddar cheese
• Half a bell pepper, colour of your choice, cut into quarter inch (5 millimetre) cubes
• 5 ounces (140 grammes) passata with herbs and garlic, or plain pasta sauce
• Optional: Quarter of a red onion, thinly sliced

And this equipment:

• 2 large flat baking trays, or 12 inch (30 centimetre) pizza tray
• Deep casserole dish with a lid, or a large mixing bowl and clingfilm
• Rolling pin
• Small saucepan

HOW TO:

• Prepare the dough according to the recipe, which will take roughly two hours.
• When it has finished its second proof, preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mk.6)
• Make the pizza sauce by cooking the passata, or pasta sauce, in a saucepan over medium high heat and reduce it by half the thicken it.
  
  
  
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• Using a heart shaped cutter, cut hearts out of as many slices of pepperoni you want. Cut the scrap pepperoni into little pieces to sprinkle over the pizzas.

To make individual pizzas,

• Divide the dough into three (roughly 100 grammes per portion), roll into balls, and leave the other two balls covered while you work with the first one.
• Roll the dough ball out to about a quarter inch (5 millimetres) thick. Pick it up, and stretch it out a little: this will make the middle thinner and the edges thicker, to make a crust.
• Place the pizza bases onto the baking trays before putting on the toppings, because they are difficult to move once decorated.
• Spread a third of the sauce all over each pizza, leaving the crust clear, then sprinkle the mozzarella, chopped pepperoni, pepper, and onion, if using, all over the tops.
• Sprinkle the cheddar on top of the other toppings, and then decorate the tops with a pepperoni heart each.
• Cook in the oven for 15 minutes, swapping the trays half way through to allow each tray to get a trip near the top of the oven for extra crispiness. 

To make one large pizza,

• Roll the full dough ball as above, then place on the round pizza tray.
• Put the toppings on as above, decorating finally with pepperoni hearts.
• Cook for 20 minutes, or until the bread is nicely browned, and the cheese is nice and crispy.

This recipe is quite adaptable and versatile, so you could put anything on the top. You could also make the pizzas heart shaped if you like, or use this recipe for any kind of celebration!

THIS TIME IN 2016: Yeast and Wheat Free Cinnanomnom (or just plain Cinnamon) Rolls

THIS TIME IN 2015: Experiment: Spelt Bagels (Wheat-, Dairy-, Egg-, and Yeast Free)

THIS TIME IN 2014: No blog

Quick Pizza Base (Wheat-, Dairy-, Egg-, and Yeast Free)

Nom nom, wheat and yeast free pizza... the great thing about home made pizza is the ability to customise your topping!

One of the things I really miss about being able to eat wheat and having more time on my hands is the wonderful taste of pizza. I used to love getting a takeaway pizza every once in a while as a treat, and nowadays the experience is always disappointing given that gluten-free pizzas from major pizza places are absolutely vile.

I did however learn how to make traditional yeast-risen pizza bases using spelt flour, which was pretty easy, but these days I try to avoid yeast as well as not only does it sometimes upset my stomach, giving me a bit of acid reflux, but also baking with yeast is fairly time consuming.

So, I altered a naan bread recipe that I found in an Indian cookery book in my parents' bookshelf to make a very nice and fairly reliable pizza base recipe that uses baking powder instead of yeast.

FREE FROM
☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts
☑ Eggs
☑ Dairy

CONTAINS
☒ Gluten (unless you use gluten-free bread flour)
☒ Refined sugar products


 INGREDIMENTS

For the base:

• 8 ounces (225 grammes) spelt flour
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) sunflower oil
• ¼ pint (150 millilitres) hand-hot water
• Oil, for rubbing
• Topping of your choice: tomato sauce, grated cheese, slice meats, peppers etc.

HOW-TO 

• Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large mixing bowl. Drizzle over the oil and rub into the flour.
• Mix in the water a bit by bit until you get a nice soft dough that's a little tacky; you may not need to use all the water.
• Sprinkle the work surface with flour and knead the dough a little for about 5 minutes. Brush the mixing bowl with a little oil and put the dough ball in, rolling it around to coat in the oil. Allow to sit and rest for about 20 minutes.
• Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F, Gas Mk.6, or hot).
• Once the dough has rested, roll out on a floured work surface to your wanted thickness and shape; I recommend about a quarter inch (5 millimetres). Brush the edges with a little water and roll up into a crust.
• Put gently place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and prick with a fork. Cook for about 10 minutes.
• Remove from oven an add the topping. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes.
• Once cooked, allow to cool slightly to avoid burning; cut into slices.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR: Chewy Caramel