I wanted to match this up with some ingredients that would complement the sweet cheese as well as something to contrast with the sweet flavours. This is what I came up with. The sweetness of cooked leeks is nice with this cheese and the contrasting texture of slightly crunchy/slippery leek with the smooth melted Stracchino worked well. Pieces of tomato and mushroom are little bursts of intense flavour to contrast with the smooth sweetness of the cheese and leek.

Ingredients

• Pizza dough (I made one massive pizza with a 500g dough ball, you could also make 2 smaller ones with these quantities of toppings)
• Pizza sauce
• 2 Leeks
• Good handful of button Swiss brown mushrooms
• 2 Ripe tomatoes, diced
• Paprika
• 300g or so Stracchino. You could use mozzarella if you absolutely can’t find this, it will still work well with these toppings

Method

1. Cut the green tops off the leeks and discard. Wash the leeks well. Dice and saute in olive oil with one crushed clove of garlic until translucent.
2. Tip the mushrooms into a hot pan, and leave them to cook until starting to brown, shaking to stop them burning.
3. Shape your pizza base and spread with a thin layer of sauce.
4. Scatter a few pinches of paprika over the tomato sauce. It’s amazing how much of a difference there is between a good quality paprika versus the ones I have tried from supermarkets!
5. Scatter the leek mixture evenly over the base.
6. Slice the cheese and tear each slice into chunks.  Scatter evenly over the pizza. Make sure to leave some gaps so that the crust doesn’t get too moist.
7. Now scatter over the mushrooms and diced tomatoes. Don’t overdo it – a good guide is to end up with around 2 pieces of each per slice, on average.
8. Cook on a preheated pizza stone or any other cooking method of your choice.

Wondering how I could feed the hungry hordes without even having a pizza stone preheated in my inside oven, I remembered something else I read on the net a while back and thought I’d give it a try. It worked so well that I wanted to share it so that you too can have a backup plan if you need to cook some emergency pizzas one day!

You will need

• Pizza dough, sauce, other toppings (obviously)
• A cast iron skillet (frying pan with a metal handle)
• An oven with a grill (broiler)

How it works

1. Put your skillet on your stovetop burner and preheat it on high heat for 15 minutes
2. Turn on your grill and leave it long enough that you can see it glowing (if using an electric grill, gas versions won’t need to preheat)
3. Prepare your pizza on a floured peel, making sure that your base is not larger than the base of the skillet
4. Using oven mitts or a tea towel, take your skillet off the burner and turn it upside down. Slide your pizza onto the skillet.
5. Quickly place the pizza + skillet on an oven rack below the grill. The top of the pizza should be 2-3 inches below the grill.
6. Watch the pizza as it cooks, you can easily overcook if you aren’t careful. The pizza should take 2-3 minutes to cook. You may need to rotate your pizza 180 degrees half way through cooking.
7. Before cooking your next pizza, return the skillet to the hotplate for a few minutes to reheat the base. Or use 2 skillets, alternating so that you don’t have to wait between pizzas.

This method works because the pizza is cooked evenly at a very high heat from above and below, similar to a wood fired oven. The pizzas were actually quite close in appearance to those from my wood oven, although the sides of the crust did not cook quite so evenly. But this trick is absolutely worth adding to your home made pizza arsenal!

NOTE: be very careful as the handle of the skillet will be very hot. Wear oven mitts and use a tea towel when lifting te pizza. This should only be done under adult supervision.

Ingredients

• Plum Sauce
• A small handful of Walnuts (freshly shelled makes a difference)
• Mascarpone
• Dried Figs
• Honey (optional)
• Thin slices of fresh Pear
• Sugar
• Lime juice

Method

1. Drizzle plum sauce over your prepared pizza base. You don’t want the base totally covered.
2. Drizzle some honey if using – just some thin swirls.
3. Scatter the pizza with halved figs and halved walnut pieces.
4. Finish with chunks of mascarpone – I use teaspoon sized pieces.
5. Carefully slide into the preheated oven using your peel and bake until the crust is golden. Be careful with this one as the nuts can burn easily.
6. While the pizza is cooking, slice your pear thinly and put the pieces in a bowl with the juice of one lime, and a teaspoon of sugar. Toss together to coat. When the pizza is cooked, finish by dressing with the slices of fresh pear and serve!

Full credit to the talented Dan Lepard who wrote a recipe for gluten free bread using psyllium husks. I had never used these before and they work amazingly well in gluten free doughs, helping the dough to rise naturally and giving a nice chew to the cooked base.

I use both yeast and baking powder in this recipe to get as much lightness in the dough as possible without overloading on the taste of either ingredient.

I have included links to some of the more unusual ingredients on Amazon, but you should be able to find them in your local health food store.

Ingredients – makes 2 bases

Method

1. Mix together all of the dry ingredients
2. Add the oil, vinegar and water and stir well for about 30 seconds. The dough should be a stiff, sticky paste.
3. Lay out 2 squares of oiled baking paper. Oil your hands to prevent sticking, and separate the dough into equal sized lumps.
4. Following the shaping technique from my previous gluten free dough recipe, press the dough into a disc shape. Drizzle with as much olive oil as needed to make the dough workable. Aim for a base about 4mm thick with a slightly raised edge.
5. Lay a piece of plastic wrap or baking paper over each base to stop it drying out and leave to rise for about 1 hour. You should also start preheating your pizza stone at this point.
6. Once the bases have risen for an hour and the oven is properly hot, add cheese, sauce and ingredients according to your recipe and slide the pizza along with its sheet of baking paper into the oven. Cook until the crust is starting to brown, rotating in the oven halfway through cooking if necessary. You can also finish it off under the grill for a minute to really get the top browned well.

NOTES: If you don’t have all of these ingredients, you could substitute the rice flour, corn flour & tapioca for a commercial gluten free flour mix. The soy flour could be replaced by millet flour, fine polenta or maize flour as it is used to add flavour and colour. If reducing the sugar at all, add a pinch more baking powder as the sugar helps the yeast leaven the bread. Salt can be reduced or eliminated completely; it is mostly for flavour.

TIP: The key to stretching out a base is to use dough that has been resting for at least 1 hour, preferably more. This gives the gluten in the dough time to relax, so that it spreads more easily. If you find the dough is too elastic and keeps springing back while shaping, cover it with plastic wrap and leave to rest for 10 minutes. If all of your dough is quite springy, do the first step of pressing out your dough into 1cm thick discs, then leave them all to rest for 10 minutes before stretching.

Method

1. Place your dough ball onto a floured surface. If it becomes too sticky to handle at any point, dust with flour again.



2. Start by pressing the dough ball into a disc shape, first with your fingertips and then with the flat of your hands. Try to get the dough as flat as possible before you start the next step. Pressing out the dough first makes it much easier to maintain a nice round shape in the finished base. You may find that you need to flip the dough over and press on the other side.



3. At this point you should have an evenly round disc perhaps 1cm thick.



4. The next step is to stretch the dough. First, pick up the dough with your thumbs and forefingers near the outer rim. Stretch gently by moving your hands apart. Once you have stretched a section, rotate the dough and stretch again, working your way around the dough. Keep rotating and stretching until the base is a fairly even thickness.



5. You may be able to achieve an even thickness just by stretching and rotating the dough as above. If not, try draping the base over your knuckles, with both hands clenched into fists in front of you. Gently move your hands apart to stretch the base out. Concentrate on any thicker areas that you might have missed. The thickness of your base may vary with personal taste, but I aim for a base around 2mm thick in most places, with a slightly thicker rim.




6. The base should now be ready to flip onto a floured peel and start topping. If you have ended up with a few minor tears in the dough, just squeeze them together – they will not be noticed in the finished pizza.



7. And that’s it! Don’t worry if this seems tricky, give it a try and you will be stretching and spinning bases in no time. Just take it slow, and start off stretching gently until you get a feel for your dough.

NOTE: If you aren’t confident to try this method, you can use a rolling pin to roll out your base. However rolling pins tend to knock more air out of the base, so stretching is the preferred method.

Method

1. Prepare your pizza dough according to the recipe you are using.
2. When the recipe calls for kneading, proceed as follows steps. If the dough becomes too sticky to handle at any point, sprinkle a little flour as needed.
3. Press the dough into a flattish lump, pushing forwards with the heel of your hand so that the dough is longer than it is wide.



4. Pick up one of the long ends, and fold the dough back over itself.



5. Rotate the folded dough a quarter turn.



6. The dough is now ready to press flat with the heel of your palm again. Repeat these steps as many times as called for in the recipe.

Method

1. Once you have finished preparing your dough according to your pizza dough recipe of choice, take a lump of dough weighed out to make one base.
2. Sprinkle a little flour on the dough and your working surface to prevent sticking if necessary. Don’t overdo the flour at this point though, as you want the dough to stick to itself as you form the ball.
3. Flatten the dough with the palm of your hand.



4. Fold the dough in half.



5. Fold the dough again, so that it is now folded into quarters.



6. Turn the dough so that the folds are underneath, and you have a flat surface on top. Make a ‘karate chop’ shape with each hand, and press the bottom of each hand against the top of the dough, on the left and right sides.



7. Applying pressure, squeeze the top of the dough over itself with the sides and bottoms of your hands and pinch together underneath.



8. Keeping the bottom of the dough ball squeezed together, move one hand forwards and the other backwards. The dough ball should rotate in your hands while it squeezes together underneath.



9. If necessary, you can pinch together the bottom a little to neaten up, or repeat the previous step. You should end up with a nice round dough ball! Dust the dough ball well with flour and set aside while you roll up the rest of your batch of dough.