The cost of home made pizza

Artytarty

How do you roll out the base thinly?
I make my own dough, I dont have a breadmaker.
But when I roll it out its so elastic that it keeps springing back into "small size" again!
It wont stretch and stay stretched out!
Arty.

Ben84

The soft mozzarella in brine works fine on pizza, but it's best diced finely. I use it with grated cheddar as the two combine well and go golden-crispy when cooked.

As for tinned tomatoes, I stopped buying them some time ago because passata is much better. It's cheap, thick and one jar goes further than many tins of tomato water. Where it took 2-3 tins of tomatoes to top a pizza after straining off water and simmering, a few tablespoons straight out a jar of passata are ideal for pizza. A thick pasta sauce is good too. Co-Op currently have a 500g jar of pasta sauce for 66p, which I'm stocked up on and using as a cheap passata substitute as it's just as good.

katylou6180

I must be a right !!!!! then, I send Mr Katylou6180 on hunts for 9p pitta breads and make individual ones tomato puree, cheese...and whatever else you can throw on it!!!

jexygirl

Im with katylou - I make pizza when I have odd bits of stuff to throw on it! I make JO dough, its so yum, then stick tom puree as the base, anything and everything as topping that I want using up, and then cover with normal cheddar - I think the cheddar is likely to be the most expensive part here!
Jex

Steel_2

I thought the title of this thread was interesting as homemade pizza is my cheapest meal of the week.

I use 500g of bread flour, which I have loads of in the cupboard any way for making bread (I'm a flour hoarder)
A packet of instant yeast (again have for bread making)
A bit of fat or oil
300g water

This makes two cracking sized pizzas

Then the topping is whatever I have in the fridge at the time.

Last night it was:

• tomato base: tomato paste with a good splash of nando's peri-peri and some chilli & honey HP sauce. Occasionally I save a few tbsp of a tomato pasta sauce for the base if we have it in the week
• One onion split between the two pizzas
• Whatever left over veggies I have - last night 1/2 a wrinkly pepper, some wrinkly mushrooms
• A slice or two of smoked bacon - always in the fridge for risottos and breakfasts at the weekend
• Sometimes chicken if we've had something with chicken drumsticks or wings in the week
• The cheese is cheaper mild stuff that's in the fridge for lunches and sandwiches

If I've bought some sweetcorn for the chickens I occasionally snitch a bit of that with a tin of tuna for a spicy seafood pizza.

I use a silicone baking tray to cook mine on. I roll it out with a rolling pin very thinly (I press down quite hard) straight on the sheet and then top it.

There's usually enough left for hubby to have for lunch at work the next day.

Gingernutmeg

Artytarty wrote: »

How do you roll out the base thinly?
I make my own dough, I dont have a breadmaker.
But when I roll it out its so elastic that it keeps springing back into "small size" again!
It wont stretch and stay stretched out!
Arty.

You have to go at it slowly I normally do two pizza bases at a time, so I roll one a bit, then let it rest, then roll the other, let that rest, go back to the first and so on. It takes a while but it does work, and eventually it seems to reach a point where you could just keep rolling it and it doesn't snap back so much. Also it's not pastry so you can be quite firm with it, there's no need to be gentle.

zippychick

Artytarty wrote: »

How do you roll out the base thinly?
I make my own dough, I dont have a breadmaker.
But when I roll it out its so elastic that it keeps springing back into "small size" again!
It wont stretch and stay stretched out!
Arty.

Arty - try putting a sheet of clingfilm between the rolling pin and the pizza dough. Holds it in place and minimises springback Seen Rachel Allen do this on tele, and never looked back! Lets you roll it much thinner and is so much easier - plus it doesn't stick!:D:j

kemo_2002

have decided to make homemade pizzas for the first time tonight, i have my ingredients (i think) and ive no idea really what to do, is it best make hte mix up now or shall i make it tonight just before we eat~?

CCP

kemo_2002 wrote: »

have decided to make homemade pizzas for the first time tonight, i have my ingredients (i think) and ive no idea really what to do, is it best make hte mix up now or shall i make it tonight just before we eat~?

It depends how much time you'll have this evening, and also whether you will be making the base from scratch (flour, water, yeast) or from a packet mix.

If you're making the base dough from scratch then it will take an hour or so to rise. If you won't have time for that this evening, make it now and stick it in the fridge where it will rise slowly all day.

If you're using a packet mix then check what the instructions say - from memory of the last time I used one, it only needs to sit for around 20 minutes, so you'd probably be fine to do that this evening.

Does that help?

kemo_2002

thanks, im making from scratch, ive no idea what im doing just going to search for a basic recipie.