How to make a Cheap & Easy Deep Pan Pizza

With Mrs P on maternity leave if we can choose a cheap and easy option over eating out then we’ve gotta take it! It was a Saturday afternoon and me being spontaneous me, I wanted pizza! We couldn’t afford the luxury of eating out so using a pizza base recipe well honed by years of practise, I set the wheels in motion. Living in Wigan gives us a lot of bargain stores and being on a budget I decided to pick only the own brand items from one of the leading “Value” retailers disrupting the marketplace. Wanted to get Beth involved too so all the hands on pictures are Beth getting in there, kneading and folding and really enjoying herself. Beth loves pepperoni or margarita, Mrs P doesn’t like pineapple and I love everything! The recipe below caters for two oven trays. We were very hungry so the ingredients were right for us but if you’re looking for a single pizza or more divide or multiply as necessary. So I would say that’s enough for 8 people, or 4 really hungry people 🙂 [toggle title=”Ingredients”]

Pizza Base:

• 650ml of luke warm water.
• 1 * 7g Yeast
• 1 Tbls of Golden Caster Sugar (We used normal)
• 1 Tbls of Fine Sea Salt
• 1 Kg of Strong White Bread Flour (Plus Extra for Dusting)

Tomato Base:

• Tin of Chopped Tomatoes with Garlic and Onion
• 1 Tube of Tomato Passata

Toppings:

• Olive Oil
• 1* Yellow Pepper
• 1 * Red Onion
• Bacon Scraps
• Basil Leaves
• Half Small Tomatoes
• Garlic Clove
• Mozzarella Ball
• Grated Mozzarella

Tools Needed:

• Mixer. We have the Kenwood K Mix with a dough hook.
• Oiled up Baking Trays
• Measuring Jug
• Large Bowl – Needs to be double the size of mixture.
• Muslin Cloth
• Sieve
• Rolling Pin

Here’s How to make the Dough:

• Pour the water and yeast into the mixing bowl and put it on slow speed.
• Put in the tablespoon of sugar and tablespoon of salt.
• After sifting the flour add to the watery,yeasty,sugar salt mixture a little bit at a time.
• It’ll all start to combine and for in a springy ball in the middle of the bowl. Our mixer doesn’t quite get the edges so we had to stop a few times and scrape the sides.

• Dust the side with flour and when you’re at the springy stage, re-wash your hands and start kneading the dough. We found pulling it apart and refolding worked well for us.
• When you’re happy, put into the large bowl, cover with a damp cloth and put in a warm place.
• The yeast will make the dough rise and it’s ready when it’s at double the size. We didn’t wait that long because we were hungry but also didn’t want it to be too thick.

Making the Tomato Base:

• We cheated because it was cheaper and will probably taste a lot better. Using the can of pre made cut tomato, onions and garlic. I drained off the water with a sieve and added most of the tube of passata.

Preparing the Base:

• So it’s risen up and you’re ready to go. Divide the contents of the bowl into two and use a heavily floured sideboard, floured rolling pin and your hands. Stretch out the half of the dough mixture until it becomes easy to work with and slow flatten and move onto the greased baking tray.
• Crimp up the edges to get a nice crust and now you’re ready for the tomato base you’ve made.
• Liberally spoon on half but remember sometimes less is more!
• At this stage put the oven on to 200 degrees of gas mark 6 to preheat.

Toppings:

• We used bacon as our meat. Our local butcher has a stack of unformed bacon that he sells very £s. As it’s misshapen it’s perfect for slicing into food or like this cutting into strips for the pizza topping. Cut fine and spread all over.
• Cut the pepper into thin slices and put all over.
• Same goes for halves of small tomatoes.
• Some of us didn’t want basil leaves so use as you want 🙂
• We decided on mozzarella balls so tore little pieces off as well as a nice layer of grated mozzarella. Just gave us that really nice texture.

Cooking:

• We cooked one pizza at a time on the bottom shelf of our electric oven. Gas mark 6/200 degrees for 20 minutes or less if you think it’s done.

Homemade pizza a bloody success! Excellent value, great taste and so much fun to make with the family #homemade #pizza #picoftheday #love #dough #kneeditrealgood A photo posted by Corporate Dad (@corporatedad.co.uk) on Jul 9, 2016 at 12:10pm PDT

Finish off with a nice glass of bubbly! It really is that easy! Cleaning up is the hardest bit of this process and even that wasn’t too hard.

So how much did it cost!