Wednesday, October 29, 2008

The Daring Bakers do Pizza!


Yes, it is that time again! Another Daring Baker challenge to post. This month’s challenge was chosen by Rosa from Rosa’s Yummy Yums and is Pizza! This obviously left quite a wide scope for imagination.

I have made pizza dough from scratch quite often, so the challenge wasn’t something new for me. I do love home made pizza though, so my challenge was to make something simple but tasty. Some of the best pizza I have ever tasted was at a small pizzeria (if that is actually an Italian word!) in Rome called La Renella. They sell pizza by weight in Italy and my husband and I kept going back there for more. Some of the stand out flavours were eggplant and mozzarella and potato and parmesan. I loved the simplicity of the Roman pizza.



I found the dough for this recipe quite sticky, but past experience has shown me that a sticky dough often gives a crisper base. I also only made ¼ of the recipe – enough just to make one large pizza. We were meant to try tossing the dough as part of the challenge, but my dough just a bit sticky for that. I had visions of dough sticking to the ceiling! The pizza stone (or tray in my case) was liberally sprinkled with semolina which gave the pizza a great crust.

We had to top our pizza with both a sauce and a topping. I made a sauce using chopped onion, garlic, olive oil and canned Italian tomatoes. I simply reduced this down, adding a small spoonful of brown sugar, salt and pepper to make a delicious well flavoured sauce. On top of the sauce I used prosciutto, blue cheese and pinenuts. My husband and I both really enjoyed this pizza! It was the first meal that I cooked in the kitchen of the place that we are renting while our house is being built. The oven passed the pizza test (and more importantly passed the shortbread test as well!).



See what variations of pizza the other Daring Bakers (I think there are well over 1000 of us now!) made here.

18 comments:

Cakelaw said...

Your pizza looks delicious and your post makes me long for Rome!

Anonymous said...

Nice photos - your pizza looks delicious!

Deeba PAB said...

Looks really yummy Tammy...& yes, the original pizzas are nothing like what you get in the rest of the worl! I've had my best hand tossed pizza in a small eatery in Milan...

Di said...

Nice job on the pizza--interesting topping combination. And I'm glad things are going well with the rental kitchen so far. =)

Snooky doodle said...

wow i m craving pizza now. and its still 8 in the morning here. Pizza for breakfast. Great idea :) the only problem now is that I don t have any :( your pizza look so delicious an yummy

Cakelaw said...

Hi Tammy, I have given you an award here:

http://kitchenlaw.blogspot.com/2008/10/sugar-high-friday-spice-up-your-life.html

Anonymous said...

I had the same "problem." Pizza is nothing new to me, still it was a fun challenge. Your pizza looks great!

ostwestwind said...

Your pizza looks very tasty

Ulrike from Küchenlatein

Lynne Daley said...

I agree, a soft dough is not a bad thing. Nice blend of flavors with your topping choices.

Engineer Baker said...

I love the toppings - the pine nuts must have given it a wonderful crunch. Nice job.

Anonymous said...

I love the look of your pizza! The folding of the proscuitto looks so pretty. Amazing job Tammy!

Bumblebutton said...

Looks yummy--so glad your temporary oven is working well--wouldn't you HATE it if you had to give up baking for awhile?!! Nice job!

Heather B said...

yum! It looks so delicious! Great job!

Shari said...

Looks delicious!

Anonymous said...

The prosciutto and bleu cheese sound fantastic! Well done. I've never tried true Italian pizza, but my wife has and says it's quite different from American pizza and very good.

CookiePie said...

Beautiful pizza - sounds delicious too!!

Judy said...

Your pizza toppings sound delicious. Prosciutto and pine nuts, yum.

Ruth said...

Your pizza looks scrumptious!