I really enjoy going home to see my family. My Mum is a great cook and most things I’ve learnt in the kitchen have been from her. Yep, there is nothing quite like coming home to Mum’s cooking! Even if it is for just one weekend every now and then.

This experience is made even more enjoyable when it is italian. There are some recipes I have hidden away in several books that I’d like to try to make myself one day. Calzone, bruschetta, homemade ciabatta… these are just a few and will all (hopefully) feature in future posts. Italy, particularly Florence, is one place I cannot wait to visit!

Pizza is usually quite quick and relatively cheap to make. I must admit, I have struggled to find a really nice pizza dough recipe but Mum makes a really good one so I thought I would copy it down and share it. Mmmm, delicious pizza!

Pizza

For the pizza dough

1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 tablespoon of oil
A combination of milk and water

For the topping (anything that suits your fancy really, these are some of my favourites)

Tomato paste
Pesto
Onion
Sun-dried tomatoes
Olives
Capers
Mushrooms
Italian sausage

As simple as this! Combine the oil and the other dry ingredients. Mix to a dough with milk and water. This pizza dough only needs a very light knead. Roll the dough out and place into a pizza plate. I like round pizzas so have a circular pizza tray but you can use pretty much any baking tray.

Top with anything you so desire, a combination of tomato paste and pesto (you can even make your own) is a good start. Onion, mushrooms, olives…I’ll leave it up to you. Traditional pizzas only use 2 or 3 toppings per base but I like a few more than this. Cover with cheese, I find putting mozzarella on after the tomato paste/pesto combination and before the mushrooms, cabanossi (similar to salami), olives etc is a good idea. The cheese then won’t go hard on top when put in the oven and the pizza has a really nice stringy feel to it. You can then top with a small amount of regular cheese.

Put the pizza into a pre-heated oven (200°degrees) for about 20 minutes. Like most pizzas, this one is even tastier the next day for lunch. Enjoy!