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Thursday, October 29, 2015

Making Pizza Dough with Bread Maker

A couple days ago, I thought of clearing some veggies that had been sitting in my fridge for a tad too long.. I got plenty of tomatoes, sweet onions, a green capsicum and a box of fresh button mushrooms. When mixed together, I thought these vegetables would be great for a pizza.

Without thinking too much, I decided to make a simple pizza dough with my bread maker and while waiting for the dough to slightly proof, I worked on the tomato sauce which recipe you can check here.

The recipe of the pizza (crust) dough is adapted from here. It's relatively easy and fail-proof. As I was in a hurry when making my pizza the other day, I didn't wait for the dough to entirely proof and my pizza crust still turned out great and soft.

I shaped the pizza dough with a rolling pin and didn't make it look so round and neat on purpose because a Chef from a cooking show in Food Network once said something like this "Your home/hand made pizza doesn't have to look perfect, otherwise it looks like a store-bought pizza". I took his advice all to heart and created a pizza that was not neat in shape. My home-made pizza had rustic look and tasted yummy. In fact, I think my pizza tasted exactly like the pizza that my Mom used to make back home... And I ate two slices not long after the hot pizza came out from the oven and it was not even lunch time yet.

2. As per the general bread maker function: Place fresh milk/water, sugar and salt in the bread maker.

3. Pour the flour then make a small hole in the flour.

4. Put the yeast in the flour hole (make sure the yeast is not in contact with the liquid ingredients before kneading).

5. Turn your bread machine on (I use the basic program). Once the mixture has turned into a dough, add the butter in. If you think the dough is too wet, add 1-2 tbs flour, as needed. If the dough is too dry, add 1 tsp of water at a time.

6. Let the dough sit for 30 minutes and knead again.

7. The dough will be smooth and well incorporated after the second kneading. Let the dough proof for another 30 minutes or so.

8. Once the dough has proofed, place the dough on a floured working surface and shape it with a rolling pin until you achieve the desired round shape.

9. Put the rolled dough in a lined tray and top the pizza dough with tomato sauce and whatever toppings you want to include.

My pizza before baking.

10. Bake the pizza for about 18-25 minutes in a preheated oven at 160-170 degree Celcius until your cheese is bubbly (if you are putting Mozzarella) and the crust is slightly brown.

I ran out of Mozzarella cheese when baking my pizza two days ago yet was lazy to go to the nearby supermarket just to pick a pack of Mozzarella. In the end, I scattered some cheese singles' cuts on top of my pizza when it was piping hot (just out from the oven) so the cheese would melt and this way, I would still have some cheese on my pizza. I purposely didn't put any cheddar cheese or cheese singles on the pizza before baking because I didn't want the cheese to turn hard and crispy after baking. Cheddar cheese doesn't melt as well as Mozzarella.