Fun with Pizza party including pizza for dessert

My sister rang and said she and her girls were calling in the following evening, not much notice for making and organising a meal. I knew that they all like pizza so that was easy, but I had no idea what they liked on top; so I thought I'd make plenty of choices for them.

I've also includded a detailed recipe for you to make a great pizza base.

Any good pizza begins with its base and whether you like it thin or thick the recipe is pretty much the same.

This will make two 12” medium thick bases.

500gm of strong white flour.

If you can get extra strong so much the better, because it will have extra glutton in it to make the dough more pliable, but any bread flour will do.

300ml of warm water.

1oz of fresh yeast or 7g of packet dried yeast.

2 tblsp of butter.

1tsp of salt.

1tsp of ground black pepper.

1 tsp of sugar.

1 tblsp of dried mixed Italian herbs.

Add the water to a bowl and melt the yeast and sugar, leave it somewhere warm until there is a frothy top to it. Give it a stir and put in your mixer’s bowl.

Weigh out your flour and add the salt and herbs, giving them all a good mix up.

Set your dough hook in motion on slow and bit by bit add your flour mix. You should get a much smoother mix this way. Leave it to mix for ten minutes, and then turn it out onto your work surface. I like to stretch the dough and then fold it over, turn the dough through 90 degrees and stretch again, keep doing this until your arms are too tired to do any more. Place the dough in a bowl, cover with a warm damp cloth, [this helps prevent a skin forming.] leave it to prove for at least an hour. You really want it to be double its original size I find putting it on the windowsill where it is quite warm helps.

Turn the dough out once you are happy with how much it has risen and ‘knock it back’ which is a baker’s term for removing the air from the dough, not having a quick slug of your favourite tipple.

Stretch the dough again and slowly begin to work it. Cut it into two and set one piece aside ready for the second pizza.

Shape your dough ready for the toppings.

I like to cook bread of any kind in a very hot oven gas mark 8 or 9 about 240c or 475F for about twenty minutes or until it is turning a golden brown.

I recommend that you dust the work surface with some flour just to stop it sticking. Now shape your dough, remember you don’t have to have round ones, I once made on the shape of a guitar [Ace of Cakes ; watch out.] one of the pizzas I wanted to be square this time, so that I could make it with various toppings.

For the toppings, you can use a variety of things, because these were for a party I made the combinations a little bit more fun.

First of all, I made a tomato sauce;

2 large onions

4 cloves of garlic.

1 tube of concentrated tomato puree

1 tbles of white wine vinegar.

Juice from a lemon, plus a little of the zest

A glug of olive oil.

Fry the onions and garlic on a moderate heat just to colour them, add the tomato and wine vinegar and cook a few more minutes. Let the mix cool slightly and then plop it in the blender and give it a good whizzing until it forms a smooth paste, you may need to add a little more oil.

Spread the tomato sauce out quite thinly, if you try to be too generous the base will go soggy and not bake properly.

I made a square base so that I could easily have four different pizzas in one.

After spreading the tomato sauce I put a light cover of grated cheese over the whole pizza. This was a combination of a strong mature hard cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Wensleydale; you can use a mix of whatever you fancy.

One corner was I placed Spanish anchovies in olive oil, and a little extra cheese.

The second corner was polony and sweet horse chestnuts. [a favourite of mine]

The third was chorizo cut thinly, sliced tomato and extra cheese.

The forth corner was extra tomatoes and cheese.

The next one was a deep crust, again with tomato sauce and the cheese mix, one side I made a traffic light combination of red, yellow and green peppers laid out in lines. I drizzled a small amount of olive oil over the peppers so they would cook really well and on the other side was Spanish chorizo sausage placed on big slices of tomatoes.

So here is the fun part of my toppings, I knew they my guests that is all had a soft spot for chocolate and anything sweet, so how to make a topping for dessert.

Standard deep crust base was spread with homemade blackberry jam. Next, I grated dark chocolate onto the jam. We have mountains of plums at the moment so I stoned six of them and added them on top. To give a sort of cheese look I added white chocolate which I grated nice and thick.

Pop it in the oven at gas mark 8 for twenty minutes or until the crust looks nice and golden brown.

For the tomatoes, I added glacé cherries in a circle around the edge and then added another layer of grated white chocolate for effect.

It was a great hit and I have orders to make more or else.

I found this you tube clip and thought I'd add it just for fun.

This guy has obviously had a lot of practice, but I'm not sure it would make it taste any better.