Pizza bread

Plain pizza bread

Pizza bread with Cream Cheese

A couple of days ago, as we were driving to get some shopping done, my Husband and I were talking about what we were going to have for dinner, when a little chirpy voice came from the back of the car saying "Pizza". Needless to say, I was very surprised so I asked my son again, "What would you like for dinner? " and again I was told with a very wide smile "Pizza".  That was it, my son had requested food, so that's what he was going to have for his dinner. I therefore made the pizza and ended up with enough dough to make another, except, I ran out of the toppings. I thought of something else to do with it and since I had a block of cream cheese in the fridge, I decided to go with a Cream Cheese filled Pizza Bread.

Tonight, for Mother's Day we had Roast Beef with roast vegetables and my Husband wanted some more that pizza bread without the filling. The poor filled pizza bread did not live that long anyway... So I made the pizza dough again and shaped it into a ball, baked it and here was the bread. It is nice and crunch on the outside and very soft on the inside. Best of all, it is so easy to make, you'll be able to eat it every day.

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup of warm water

1 1/2 tsp of active dried yeast

1 tsp of sugar

3 cups of plain flour

3 Tbsp of olive oil

Pinch of salt

1- Mix the water and sugar in a jug or a bowl. Add the yeast, stir a bit to mix and set it aside to bubble away.

2- In another bowl, put the plain flour and salt and stir and make a well. Don't put your flour container away, you will need it again to flour the work space when you knead the dough. I always put it away and when it's too late (i.e. hands full of sticky dough I realise what I've done)

3- Once the yeast has worked its magic, pour it in the middle of your well. Add the olive oil and mix with your hands. Once the dough comes into a ball, flip it onto a floured work space and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. 

4- Place the dough in a bowl sprayed with oil, cover with a plastic film also sprayed with oil and leave to rise in a warm place. 

5- Once the dough has double in size (about 30 minutes for me since the oven was on), punch it, take it out of the bowl onto a floured work space and knead some more, until the dough stop sticking to the bench. 

6- Shape it into whatever you want to make (roll it if you are feeling like a pizza) and bake until the outside in golden brown and when tapping on it, it sounds shallow.

Note: my husband is having a piece now that he has toasted and spread with Peanut Butter and well, let's just say that I think this bread will appear again and again in this house especially throughout winter. I can actually hear the crunch of him biting in it...

Happy Baking everyone :)