Monique Van Tulder

A Grown Up's Gap Year™ | Wellbeing. Travel. Chic Locals.

The Best Pizza Dough Recipe – Easy Cooking with Kids

The Best Pizza Dough Recipe

When I pick The Eldest and The Youngest up from school the first words to come out of their mouths are;

“Mummy we love you, we missed you…”

No okay I’m kidding – that only happens in the movies.

Our scenario is more like this;

“Hi, I’m starving, what is for afternoon tea?  What – why that – you know I don’t like (insert whatever relatively health snack name here).”

My solution;

Get them to make their own.  Not necessarily failsafe but like most things with kids – if they have some ownership there is more chance of it being embraced.

The Best Pizza Dough Recipe

7:00am

7:15am

3:00pm

3:15pm

This pizza recipe is elementary, cheap and can be prepared in advance – earning it a very big tick in The Urban Mum cookbook…

HINT:  I use my KitchenAid mixer for everything – I may even consider trading The Husband in for a new one of these.  It makes my baking life possible & the dough hook attachment turns this recipe into easy.

Focaccia or pizza

Ingredients

Plain flour 425g

Yeast 7g (I just use granulated and keep it in the freezer)

Brown sugar 1 teaspoon

Salt 2 teaspoons

Warm water 240ml

Olive oil 3 tablespoons

Toppings

Pizza – whatever takes your fancy

Cheese, dried herbs, tomato base, meat, vegies.

Focaccia

Sea salt, dried herbs, olive oil

Methods

In a large bowl or your mixer tip in the flour, yeast, sugar and salt – give it a brief mix.

Pour the warm water with the olive oil into the flour mixture.

Turn the mixer on medium and let it knead away for 10 minutes while you;

Eat your muesli or discuss with the kids the merits of getting out of their PJ’s and into their school uniforms.

(Otherwise you are up for 10 minutes of hand kneading which gets messy and therefore an after school or weekend task).

Take the dough out of the bowl – lightly wipe the inside with oil.

Form the dough into a ball, place back in the bowl, cover tightly with clingwrap &  place it somewhere warm (near the hot water heater maybe).

It can sit for 45 minutes, until doubled in size.  Or off you go to do the school run, go to work – whatever.

++++++++++++++++++++

When you are ready – ta da – a lovely puffy yeasty pizza dough.

Get the kids to punch it down – this is fun!

Then using their hands they can shape into a pizza or a focaccia shaped rectangle (fairly thin and even).  Poke at it a bit with your fingers to make little pockets for the toppings to hug and ooze into.  Put the pizzas/focaccias onto a lined baking tray.

Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees.

You can let it rise again if you are a purist.  I’m not; so we dump on the toppings and cook for approx. 25-30 mins; until the topping and edges are browned and bubbly.

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A GROWN UP’S GAP YEAR

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