BAKE

Pizza Toppings

Where is the summer?

What has happened to it? This time last year we’d had weekends full of BBQs and balmy evenings drinking Starbucks in the park.

Don’t get me wrong I love all the seasons, I’m just not overly fond of the idea of missing one all together. But the thing I am missing the most is the summer food. Walking home in the rain doesn’t leave me craving bright salads.

This extra time, that should be spent applying factor 25 (I burn easily) and making as much use of my picnic basket as possible, hasn’t be wasted. The lovely Lauren – who’s work I featured back in February – came over for a photo day.

It was so much fun, we visited sweet little green grocers and picked up unusual ingredients and raided my prop shelves. I can’t wait to see her photos from the day, she has such unique ideas for subject matter, and I even convinced her to repeat the experience next month too.

It is so inspiring to be around other creative people, it’s one of the things I miss most about university.

These pizzas were meant to be for lunch, but as they weren’t ready until about 4 so we just snacked on them and left most for my fantastic boyfriend.

Pork and Chilli Pizza Topping
tops 1 pizza

3 tbsp ricotta
1 handful of pork
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 handful of grated cheddar

I used slow roasted pulled pork as my topping, which I cooked for 8 hours in a slow cooker basting with your chosen sauce every half an hour or so, but you could use any meat.

Stir the chilli flakes into the ricotta and spread over your pizza base.

Top with meat and cheese and bake for 30-40 minutes at 200C rotating after 20 minutes.

Caramelised Red Onion and Spinach Pizza
tops 1 pizza

3 tbsp ricotta
1 red onion
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp sugar
1 handful baby spinach leaves
1 handful of grated cheddar

Thinly slice the red onion and start frying gently, after a few minutes add the sugar. Stir on a low heat for 20 minutes being careful not to burn the onions.

Spread the ricotta over the pizza base and then sprinkle with the onions, spinach and cheddar.

Bake for 30-40 minutes at 200C rotating after 20 minutes.

Pizza Dough

Every man needs a shed. Maybe not an actual shed, but a space they can lock themselves away from the world.

A place that is just theirs, without chores, noise or expectations. It is one of the ways that men differ from women, they need some solitude. Time they would have spent out alone hunting, before we built concrete cages for ourselves.

This was the topic of discussion with a coworker this morning (a little heavy for me sans wine!), spurred on by this article.

My wonderful boyfriend is a ‘shed dweller’, he finds time every day to shut himself away, and he is the happiest person I have ever met.

The conversation then turned to what our ‘sheds’ are; exercise featured highly on that list (at this point we had decided that everyone irrelevant of sex needed their own place to get away) and I think mine is my kitchen.

Not necessarily working on projects for the blog, but the comforting automatic food preparation. Making pizza from scratch is included in this, the whole process has become familiar, I only learnt how a few weeks ago and it has now become a weekly ritual.

I love pizza, but it had sadly become reserved for the rare takeaway indulgence. Because of my intolerance to tomatoes the list of places that cater for this is upsettingly short. The best alternative I have found is the Dominator base from Dominos as the garlic filling they use compensates for the lack of tomato sauce.

Though the whole process is quite time intensive, the hands on time is in short intervals, especially with the use of the dough hook on my mixer. I like to stop my mixer two minutes shy of the recommended time and then knead it by hand for three minutes (most recipes reduce the kneading time by ⅓ if using an electric mixer so I increase the by hand time).

You begin to learn what time dough should feel like, so you can adjust the ingredients accordingly. I find the dough from this recipe to be a little wet, so when I take it out of the mixture it feels a little sticky, so kneading on a floury surface balances this out.

You don’t have to mix your flours, you can just total up weight of the three and use this amount of strong white flour, but I like the richer flavour and texture.

White/Brown/Yellow Pizza Dough
adapted from Jamie Oliver’s recipe
makes 2 medium thin crust pizzas

130g strong white flour
130g strong brown flour
70g semolina
5g dried yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
215ml luke warm water
pinch of salt

Mix the yeast oil and water in a jug and leave to activate for a few minutes.

Put all the flours into a bowl and give a quick stir to combine them.

Pour the water mix onto the flour and bring together with a spatula (this stops the flour from flying everywhere when you turn the mixer on).

Beat the dough on a low setting using a dough hook for 8 minutes.

Take out and knead by hand on a floured surface for 3 minutes, form into a ball and place in a oiled bowl.

Leave to rise in a warm place for an hour, or until it’s doubled in size.

When risen, cut the dough in half and knock back (knead the air out of it) then stretch or roll the dough until thin and you’re ready to add your toppings.

I will be revealing my toppings later this week.

Green Juicey

I am not going to lie this isn’t the tastiest thing I have made on this blog. In fact my boyfriend took one sniff of it and said outright that he would not drink it. But it’s good for you and, well I wanted to play with my juicer.

It’s creation is part of my lazy attempt at self improvement, to get a few more fruit and vegetables in me, in the hope that it will counteract 9 months of cake blogging.

One of my favourite bloggers, Cupcakes and Cashmere writes a list of 10 things that she hopes to do over the summer each year. I was actually quite surprised when I read the post as it really doesn’t feel like summer over here. It has been a regular topic of conversation (you know us Brits we do love a good talk about the weather), apparently this week we’re going to be treated to our first dry weekend since March!

It felt really odd walking to the cinema last night (Avengers is AWESOME!!) as it was 8pm and still light out, as with all the miserable weather we’ve been having lately it felt more like late autumn than late spring.

Back to the summer plan, I tried this last year (pre-blog) as it appealed to my love of list making, but I only managed 5 out of the 10. Hopefully the publication of this year’s list will help me to get 100%.

1. Sort out my wardrobe. It is full of clothes I never wear, and I can never find the clothes I like, which has resulted in piles of clothes littering my bedroom – something has to be done.
2. Continue running 3 times a week, and take up some toning exercise at home and tennis on Sundays.
3. Go on a pub walk – I’ve been wanting to explore the local countryside for years!
4. Have a picnic in Whitstable.
5. Go to a pick-your-own berry farm as my strawberry plants don’t look all that promising.
6. Organise my photos and set up a proper backup system for my PC
7. Visit a brewery – Shepherd Neame is only a short bus/train ride from me.
8. Make time to take my parents dog Jasper out for a few walks on warmer days.
9. Visit a castle – there are so many near me to choose from!
10. Go to Greenwich for the day to see the Cutty Sark, Thames Barrier and the market.

Green Juicey
from Waitrose Magazing
makes 2 glasses – each glass is 2 of your 5 fruit and veg daily portions

handful of spinach
1 stick of celery
half a cucumber
2 red apples
1 lime
ice to serve

Put all the ingredients – apart from the lime and ice – through a juicer and stir well.

Pour over ice and top with freshly squeezed lime.

Cupcake Decorating Class

I love a good bank holiday weekend! Which I realise is not outlandish or revealing in the slightest, in fact I bet 99% of everyone I ask would say the same thing.

This weekend felt particularly perfect; I reverted back to my student days of running out to the corner shop to stock up on supplies in my PJs (revelling in the fact that I was the perfect middle ground between the church goers and those doing the walk of shame), leisurely cleaning my flat, and socialising with friends.

All of this pales in comparison to Saturday, when the lovely Hannah and I trekked across London and attended Cookie Girl’s cupcake decorating class.

The class covered how to set up and fill a piping bag and four different piping techniques. All my attempts with piping bags in the past have been purely my own experimentation, so it was fascinating to go back to basics and learn the proper form.

I didn’t realise how poor my hold of the bag was, I use the wrong hand, the wrong grip and hold it at the wrong angle! No wonder I hate using them so much.

To hold a bag properly, one filled you push the icing to the bottom of the bag so it’s ready at the end of the nozzle to pipe, you then twist the end to stop the icing escaping. Hold the twist in place using the thumb and forefinger of your writing hand, resting the bag on the palm of your hand (which you will use to squeeze the icing out). Hold the bag vertical over the cupcake so it’s at a right angle to the cake, and then use your other hand to guide the nozzle in the pattern you wish.

There was also an array of sprinkles and glitters to decorate the icing with, so my mental shopping list has just expanded!

Xanthe Milton, is the perfect teacher; she seemed motherly, firm with the ability to command the room (my Mother having six children relied on this quality), whilst approachable and incredibly complimentary. She didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone’s work, which considering some of the gaudy cake wrecks I created was a miracle in itself, but at the same time she gently corrected our mistakes.

To find out more details on the classes see here.

Friends Of Lemon Sugar

Today’s post has relocated! The very sweet Erin at Lemon Sugar has kindly offered some techno real estate, so you can find the recipe for this Reese’s Cake on her site.

I found Lemon Sugar on Hello Cotton (follow me here and Erin here), and as soon as I saw her site header I was smitten, the photos were so beautiful and full of light and colour.

Reading her posts are like having a really good chat to a friend over coffee, they’re funny, sweet and personal. Not only is she a fantastic photographer, she is also an amazing baker – each post is better and more tempting than the last!

Thank you for hosting my post Erin!