Cooking with children - Pizza

Here's another fun idea if your kids like to help you out in the kitchen. Yesterday, we decided to bake some home-made pizza. And this is how we did it.

Servings: 1 or 2 16" pizza (depending on how thin you like your pizza)
Ingredients:

To activate the yeast you will need:

• 1 small bag of active yeast
• 1 tbsp of warm water
• 1 tsp of sugar

For the dough:

• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tsp of salt
• 3 cups of flour (you may need some more, depending on how sticky is your dough)

Preparation:

First, you will need to activate your yeast. In a cup or small bowl, mix together the yeast, the sugar and the water. You should obtain a smooth kind of cream. Let it rest until it doubles in size (around 20 minutes).

Then, in a large bowl mix together the warm water, the yeast, and start adding the flour. At this stage, I prefer using a spoon, because the mixture is extremely sticky. However, when the flour starts to blend with the water and starts to have a better consistency, I like to hand kneed it. If after you've added the 3 cups of flour your dough is still sticky, add some more until you obtain an easily maniable dough.

Let it rest in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for at least 4 hours, at room temperature. In our case, we prepared the dough in the morning to have it ready for dinner.




 

When you are ready to eat your pizza, preheat your oven at around 500F (or at the maximum temperature your oven can handle). Dust your working area with flour and with a roll open your dough (you can also put some more flour over the dough, to make your work a little bit easier). Sometimes I make a regular round pie and sometimes I like to make a rectangular one (Napolitan style). Yesterday, the kids made round ones.

Lighlty grease a baking sheet with olive oil and bake your pie for about 15 minutes. For the small ones that we baked yesterday, we only left them for 10 minutes in the oven. I like to put some tomato sauce before baking the pizza.
 
Once the crust looks golden and crispy, you can take the pizza out of the oven. At this point, I usually put some more tomato sauce, cheese and any other topping I'd like (pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, etc). I place the pizza for another 2 to 5 minutes in the oven, until the cheese is completely melted and it's ready!