flatbread – a hippie with a minivan

Pizza dough…

Pizza is such a great meal to make… it is easy, pretty cheap, delicious and there are always leftovers!

My favourite recipe for the dough makes 3 good sized pizza’s…

2 1/2 cup of warm water
3 tsp yeast
2 tsp honey
3 tbsp olive oil
3 tsp salt
5 1/2 cups of flour

Put the water in a large bowl (or the bowl of your mixer) and add the yeast and honey and let sit for about 5 min…

Meanwhile, mix the flour and salt together…

Add the olive oil to the yeasty water, mix then add the flour. The dough should be quite moist and a bit sticky. Knead until you get a soft and satiny dough… set aside in an oiled bowl, cover and let rise until doubled. (about 45 min to an hour.)

When the dough had doubled, divide into three pieces and prepare.

Tonight the boys all wanted pepperoni and cheese…We use a can of Garlic Tomato paste mixed with a can of water and some herbs to make the pizza sauce.

I wanted to make the caramelized onion and spinach pizza with peanut sauce that Annie had shared… and of course the beauty of pizza is that you can make your own…

Here is the Pepperoni and cheese…

(stuffed crust pepperoni and cheese)

(Caramelized onion and spinach pizza with a savoury peanut sauce…)

garlic and cheese flatbread…

I saw a video on the epicurious podcast recently that featured this amazing looking flatbread topped with things that just didn’t appeal to me…

but the dough… omg… the dough looked amazing…

It looked silky and light and the way that it crisped up when baked just made me drool… I knew that I had to make it my way 🙂

So for the dough…

1 cup warm water
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

I used my mixer since the dough is really sticky and it is important not to use more flour… actually.. I even added a a few more tbsp of water because the dough was a bit too dry…

So in the bowl, add the water, the yeast and the sugar and let foam…

Mix the flour and salt together and then add to the water/yeast mixture….

Mix and then knead for 10 min…

as I said… the dough should be really sticky…

After kneading, transfer to an oiled bowl and let rise until doubled (about 1 1/2 hours)

When doubled….form into a ball and transfer to a well oiled baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap…

Let is rise for another 30 min…

Shape the dough by patting and stretching it out onto the pan…

Look at the little bubbles that have already formed!

Cover again with plastic wrap and let is rise for a 3rd time for another 1 1/2 hours….

all of those grooves are there naturally…

perfect for adding the toppings…

So for the topping I mixed about 1/3 cup of olive oil with a few minced cloves of garlic … and poured that over the dough…