Homemade Pizza with Garlic Crust Dip

What better than pizza, well I'll tell you what's better...homemade pizza! There is a certain satisfaction to making  your own pizza dough, not to mention adding as much or as little toppings as you like...even adding adding an unusual twist that makes pizza night special just for you!

Making pizza in our house is a family affair, my children love stretching the dough into a circle, mixing the easy tomato sauce and topping their pizza just the way they like it. What better weekend baking is there, no rising just lots of fun kneading and shaping. The garlic dipping sauce is just as easy to mix together as the tomato sauce and tastes as good as take out!

Mark my word, you'll think twice about ordering out after you've tried making your own...enjoy!

Makes 2 x 12inch Pizzas

Pizza Base:
500g Strong white flour
2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp White sugar
*1 x 7g Sachet quick yeast/15g dried yeast/35g fresh yeast
4 tbsp Olive oil
300ml warm but not boiling water
Small amount of semolina for dusting (not cous cous)

Tomato Sauce:
30g Tomato paste/purée
150g Tomato ketchup
50-60ml Cold water

**Garlic Crust Dip
150g Greek style/Natural yogurt
140g Sour cream
100g Mayonnaise
3 Garlic cloves, crushed and sautéed
Parsley, finely chopped
Salt and white pepper to taste


Using fresh Mozzarella:
Are you thinking of using fresh mozzarella? In my experience it will create a milk lake in the middle of your pizza! Imagine my surprise the first few times I used it only to have a sloppy, gooey pizza...yuck!

My conclusions is this, when a pizza is cooked in a traditional wood burning pizza oven it cooks at a whopping 450C /800F and a pizza of this size cooks in 90 seconds or less! Therefore the fresh mozzarella doesn't get a chance to liquefy as it does in the 12-15 minutes in our humble domestic ovens. My solution is this, cook your pizza for the first 12-15 minutes then add the fresh mozzarella for the last minute or two of cooking, gooey milk lake averted!

* If using dried or fresh yeast please activate in the 300ml of warm water (2 parts cold to 1 part boiling) with the 2tbsp of sugar for 5-10 minutes until foaming.

** Recipe adapted from Simple Parent Blog

Method
Preheat the oven to it's hottest setting, remove any unnecessary oven trays. Soiled or oiled trays will smoke at a high temperature. 

Place the flour, salt (keep the salt away from the yeast) and yeast sachet to a large mixing bowl. Attach the bowl to a stand mixer with a dough hook and mix on LOW for 1 minute. Alternatively mix by hand with a wooden spoon. 

If fresh or dried yeast add the yeast mixture to flour and salt and mix on LOW for 2-4 minutes. Add the oil and mix until the dough is smooth and elastic. 

Add all the olive oil and gradually add the warm water, you want a sticky but not a wet gooey dough. Mix with the dough hook until the dough begins to wrap itself around the hook. Gently remove the dough from the hook and set your machine to a kneading speed for 5-6 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Kneading your dough by hand can be very therapeutic, also it gives you a feel for when the dough is ready. Sprinkle your work surface with a small amount of flour and knead your dough for 10 minutes or until it is smooth and elastic.

Spread the a small amount of semolina onto two large cookie sheets or upturned roasting trays. Divide your dough into two and shape both into a large circular shape, gently stretch the dough until it is roughly 12 inches in diameter.

In a small bowl or jug, mix the tomato sauce ingredients together until it is a smooth sauce. Divide the sauce between the two pizzas, getting the sauce right to the edge!

Add your toppings. I love using mild red cheddar as my cheese, it is tangy and melts smoothly, ham and pineapple. Place the pizzas into the preheated oven, swapping half way through. Cook the pizzas for 12-15 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the toppings are bubbling.

Meanwhile, make up the garlic dipping sauce. In a medium sized bowl add the ingredients of the dipping sauce and mix together until you have a smooth sauce. You can use fresh garlic if you wish but I find that the taste is too harsh so I recommend gently sautéing the garlic in a table spoon of oil over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, remove the garlic from the pan before it browns. Season the dipping sauce before serving.

The cooked pizza will just slide off the cooking sheets thanks to the semolina, cut and serve immediately.