Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Hawaiian Pizza

My next entry after soooooo long. I need to test out the new oven so was thinking what should I try to bake this weekend. My initial plan was butter cake. But change of plan. The boy went for a pizza making excursion on Fri. He came home telling me he did not have enough of the pizza so I volunteered to try making pizza this weekend and he ok. But his enthusiasm did not last at all. I ended doing everything with no help from him at all!

As per the boy, their version of pizza only consists of chicken ham, mushroom and cheese. (Initially he said onion but he quickly dropped this ingredient when he decided he prefers not to have onions in his pizza).

Anyway getting the ingredients dun seem too difficult, the dough will be more tricky. But I have a bread machine (or so I thought!) The first dough was a major failure, it was so sticky! I had to bring out my mixer and beat the dough after trying to knead by hand for quite awhile to no avail. Even the mixer had a hard time beating up the dough. In the end I decided to just flatten it on the plate and placed the ingredients on top.

Though 2nd time the dough was much better. Must be my fault to not measure out the flour properly earlier. My 1st dough was only enough for 1 pizza and 2nd dough are meant for 2 pizzas! Major failure in the measurement! Anyway 2nd dough was less crispy but I added much more ingredients and the pizza sauce this time. So it’s definitely more juicy 2nd round! Hubby prefers the 2nd pizza (more juice, hence also thankfully the dough is thicker too).

** Come to think of it, I actually did a few rounds of bread using the breach machine but I failed to post it here. I must revive this blog of mine again.


Anyway here’s the recipe I’d gotten off the website for the pizza dough:

Pizza Dough


Prep (1h 10 min)
Cook (5 min)
Ready in (1h 15 min)

Ingredients
¾ cup warm water – 100 to 110 degrees F (40 to 45 degrees C) (*I use tap water the 2nd time, but need to add more water after the 1st round of mixing)
2 cups all-purpose flour (*I added 350ml of all purpose flour and 50ml of bread flour. Think for more crisp, can use all-purpose flour entirely)
½ teaspoon salt (*I put slightly less than ½)
¼ teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
2 teaspoons olive oil

Directions
1.       Pour the warm water into the pan of the bread machine, and add the flour on top of the water. Sprinkle with salt and sugar, and top with the yeast. Set the machine on the dough setting, and posh the start button. When the machine signals that the dough is finished, transfer to a well-floured work surface.
2.       Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
3.       Roll or stretch the dough into thin crust about 14 inches across. Leave dough thick at the edge. Place the dough onto a 14-inch pizza baking sheet, and brush the dough with the oil oil.
4.       Bake in preheated oven for 5 minutes before removing to top with desired ingredients for final baking.

(*I did not follow the directions at all. Only make use of this recipe for the ingredients. Added the ingredients in the following order.

Water - Olive oil – All-purpose flour – Bread flour – Salt (one order of the pan) – Sugar (another corner of the pan) – Yeast (dig a well in the middle of the flour and put the yeast in the middle, without touching the water, salt and sugar)

Then I used mode 8 (abt 10 min of mixing) to mix the mixture. (it was too dry when the machine completed the 1st round of mixing). Added abit of water and press mode 8 to mix the 2nd time and to keep checking if the more water is required.

Once the 2nd mixing is done, I selected mode 9 for fermentation (approx. 2 hrs) to mix and proof the dough.

While the bread machine is proofing the dough, I prepared the pizza sauce as well as the ingredients needed for my pizza.

Otherwise another website which I used for dough, pizza sauce and toppings


Ingredients
Pizza Dough:
1 cup of plan flour and 1 cup of bread flour (if more crisped pizza crust desired increase plan flour to make a total of 500 grams)
1-1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast (about 8 grams)
½ teaspoon of salt
1-1/2 tablespoon olive oil
¾ cup of luke warm water

Toppings (enough for two 8” – 9” pizzas):
4 slices of leg ham, quartered, sliced or cut into small pieces (*I bought 100g of honey glazed ham from Cold Storage)
½ small cup of pineapple cubes (used canned pineapple rings and cut into chunk cubes) (*I bought a can of pineapple cubes and cut them further. Seemed like 1 can is able to cater for 4 pizzas)
50 gram of Mozzarella cheese, diced (*I bought a packet of cheese for pizza which contains Mozzarella, Permesan and Cheddar)
4 tablespoons each of pizza sauce for 2 pizzas (*I used half of the prepared pizza sauce)

(*I also added 2 mushrooms sliced, 1 yellow onion sliced or 5 cherry tomatoes sliced)

Optional: Sprinkle of grated Parmesan cheese

1 can tomato puree (8 oz.) (*1 can of puree bought from Cold Storage)
1 tablespoon of minced onion (*1 yellow onion, diced)
1 tablespoon of sugar (*Added at random)
¼ teaspoon of salt (*Added at random)
½ teaspoon of Italian herbs (*Sprinkle at random)
Sprinkle of coarse ground black pepper (*I did not add)

1 knob of butter

Method
1) To make pizza dough: Combine flour and yeast in large mixing bowl, add water and briefly mix with spatula or wire mixing spoon. Then add in oil, and mix all ingredients well. Add enough flour (the extra flour should be added by teaspoons) to make soft but not-too-sticky dough.

2) Knead dough with bare hands until soft and elastic, about 5 – 10 minutes. Knead dough either in the large mixing bowl or on lightly floured table top. You may also pick up the dough and knead it using both hands, coat your palms with some flour as and when the dough appears a little sticky.

3) When the dough is formed, leave it in the large mixing bowl and cover with cling wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature for about 1 hour. The dough should be doubled in size.

4) In the meantime, prepare pizza sauce!

5) When it has risen, ‘punch’ the dough on lightly floured table top to deflate. Dough should remain soft but pliable.

6) Divide dough into half. Roll out each half into 8 or 9 inch circle with ½ cm thickness, using wooden roller. You may able use your finger tips to pat the dough to form a nicer circular shaped pizza base, and it put it out a little to the edge to create slightly bulgy crust round the circle.

7) Lightly grease the surface of the pizza base with a thin layer of olive oil. Then, spread a thick layer of pizza sauce, followed by topping of generous amount of ham, pineapple chunks and Mozzarelle cheese dices, on the entire surface evenly. Place whole pizza on a lightly greased pizza pan (stainless steel or disposable aluminum pan), if you do not have a pizza baking stone at home. (*For both times, I spread the dough directly onto the pan. Greasing the dough with olive oil prior spreading the ingredients will be good so the dough do not get soaked. Then spread the pizza sauce. Lay the onion and/or tomato, mushroom, ham and pineapple on top. Sprinkle the cheese) Bake as per below!! Once out, I sprinkle more cheese on top and let the heat remnants to melt the cheese. Yumz!)

8) Preheat oven with 200C for 10 minutes. Place pizza in the middle rack of oven and bake for 20 minutes, till crust lightly browned and cheese melted. Serve warm.

To create more cheesy taste: Once pizza is baked, remove pizza pan from oven. Spirinkle some grated parmesan cheese on top, and let it melted with the remaining heat after baked. It’s optional.

Add also some chicken meat, bell pepper (capsicum), tomato, and/or onion, to make it a premium one. You may even change to your desired toppings, as your wish. There’s absolutely no hard and fast rule for any homemade goodness!

1 slice of homemade Hawaiian pizza counts about 160kcal.

Tips: If you have the pizza peel, do your topping on the peel directly before placing in on the pizza stone of your oven for baking. Otherwise, do the topping on the pizza pan and bring for baking directly with it.
If you wish to bake only 1 pizza, store the remaining pizza base in the freezer

Method (Pizza Sauce)
Heat up medium sauce pan with a knob of butter over low flame. Add minced garlic and onion, fry till fragrant. Pour in tomato puree, salt and sugar. Stir briefly, and add in Italian hers and coarse ground black pepper. Simmer for 20 minutes with low flame. Heat off, and let it cool down.
Reserve for later use on pizza crust, or store in the freezer for future uses when completely cooled.
(*I did not fry the garlic and onion with butter. Just dump the puree, onion, sugar, salt and Italian herbs in one pan and stir. I believe frying with butter will be more fragrant)