It’s been a week of competitions for me, and this one is for a meal cooked in my house by none other than John Torode. That could only be a fun evening! It’ll take you about 6 seconds to realise that I’m not actually a vlogger – but we had to video some of this for the competition. Hope you don’t get sea-sick!
[youtube 66RsBrTqG4E]
I was sent the recipe card for Pizza Bianca or Not – one of the things this card suggests is that you let children make their pizzas, and so I did.
As it happens this week we were in a dodgy caravan on the Isle of Wight, with a terrible oven and not enough cuttlery or crockery, so it seemed like a great idea to make pizzas to keep the small people busy. But don’t worry John, the view from my dining room is much better… you’ll love it 😉
Well, I’ve made pizzas a hundred times, so I really didn’t expect to learn a whole lot from this recipe, but let me tell you something: this was my first experience of “00” flour. It’s something I’ve heard of often in Australian groups and from people who make fresh pasta, but flour is flour (so I thought) and I’d just stick with strong white.
The “00” flour, however, makes the softest, silkiest dough I’ve ever come across. It is simply beautiful. It made for light, fluffy, crispy pizzas, and I am entirely sold on it.
- For the dough
- 275ml warm water (275g)
- 7g dried active yeast (I used 10g)
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 375g ’00’ flour, plus extra for dusting
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for oiling
- For the pizza bianca
- 200ml creme fraiche
- 200g Parma Ham
- For a classic tomato base
- 1x400ml tin chopped tomatoes
- 300g mozzarella
- salt & pepper
- Mix together the water, yeast and sugar and leave to sit for 10 minutes
- Place half the flour in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook and pour in the liquid.
- Beat on a medium speed for 10 minutes ([b]Thermomix: 3 mins, kneading setting[/b]) then leave to stand somewhere warm for about 10 minutes, until foamy.
- Add the remaining flour, the salt and olive oil and beat the dough for a further 5 minutes, until it’s a puffy white ball [b](Thermomix: 3 mins, kneading setting[/b])
- Sit the dough in a well-oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave somewhere warm for about 30 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
- Slap the dough down and knead on a floured worktop for a few minutes, until soft but not too elastic. Divide the dough into four pieces, roll into balls and leave to rest for 10 minutes.
- Empty the tin of tomatoes into a small saucepan.
- Bring to the boil and season well.
- Cook for 5 – 10 minutes or until it’s the consistency you’d like, then take off the heat and allow to cool.
- Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible. Place a banking sheet in the oven so that it gets very hot
- With a well-floured rolling pin, flatten each ball of dough and roll it out as thin as possible. (Or give it to children to beat the hell out of… .see video above)
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven and dust it with a little flour. Rub the tiniest amount of oil on one side of a pizza base and flip it over onto the floured baking sheet.
- For a piazza bianca smear a quarter of the creme fraiche over the dough
- For a classic tomato version do the same with some of your tomato sauce.
- tear some of the mozzarella and scatter it over the top. (We also added Grana Padana to some)
- Slide the baking sheet onto the top shelf of your very hot oven and cook for 5 – 6 minutes, until the pizza is brown and crispy around the edges.
- Repeat until all the pizzas are cooked.
- Arrange the Parma ham on the pizza bianca along with any other toppings you like, and either eat the tomato version as it is or add your toppings.
- (We added mushrooms, anchovies and capers to the different tomato bases, and rocket to some of the bianca bases)