White Onion Garlic Pizza

White Onion Garlic Pizza 

Crust
125g / 1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant yeast
80ml / 1/3 cup warm water
oil, to coat

Topping
2 tbsp oil
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium onions (150g / 5.2oz) , thinly sliced
pinch salt

5 slices your favorite cheese (100g / 3.5oz)
pinch of smoked paprika
pinch of dried oregano

1) In a medium bowl, combine together flour, salt,baking powder and instant yeast. Add water and mix with a spoon. Start kneading the dough. Knead until very smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Form the dough into the ball and place in an oiled bowl. Make sure the whole dough is coated with oil. Cover with a plastic wrap or a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place while you prepare the topping.

2) Preheat oven to 200C / 400F (grill function) and line a baking tray with parchment paper.

3) In a saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons of oil. Add onions, garlic ans salt and fry until softened and golden brown.

4) Transfer the pizza dough to a surface and shape the dough into a disk, pressing down with your fingertips. If it sticks to the surface, sprinkle some flour to prevent it from sticking, however, I did not need to do that.

5) Transfer the dough onto the baking tray. Arrange cheese and onion mixture on top of it. You may first put cheese or onions. I've tried both options and both worked really well. If you put cheese on top, it browns nicely and onions remain soft covered with cheese. If you choose to put onions over the cheese, they may become slightly crunchy. Dust with smoked paprika and dried oregano.

6) Bake until nicely brown on top. Baking time is up to you. If you like a softer dough, it will only take a few minutes.

Recipe by collecting memories

Bread Pizza

Pizza has always been one of my favourite Italian dishes. Even though I love experimenting with topping ingredients and love the additions such as pineapple, pickles or blue cheese, I always  love to come back to the basics. Mushrooms, cheese, tomato sauce and some herbs is everything I need for the best pizza. However, the crust sometimes takes too much time to mix up, knead, roll out etc.  So I thought I could use white sandwich bread instead of making pizza dough. It took no time and helped me to use up the old bread. And you know what? It was so good. The crust was browned and crunchy and and the surface of the bread absorbed some of the pasta sauce. The topping was perfectly delicious and cheesy. What is more, I liked that this was divided into small portions. If you have no time but crave for pizza, there's nothing better than topping slices of white sandwich bread with your favourite pizza ingredients.

Bread Pizza

6 slices white bread
~1 cup of homemade tomato sauce*
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
dried oregano
dried basil
salt (optional)
180g mushrooms, sliced
80g gouda cheese, shredded

*My tomato sauce contains parsley, onions, garlic, pepper and a dash of olive oil so you may add these seasonings too. If there's no oil in your tomato sauce, I highly recommend adding some, or sprinkling the bread with about a teaspoon of oil before topping.

1) Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Prepare a tray with parchment paper.

2) Place bread slices on the baking paper. Top each of them with tomato sauce. Sprinkle with garlic, oregano, basil and a pinch of salt.Top with mushrooms and sprinkle with cheese.

3) Bake as long as you wish. This may take from 5 to 25 minutes. I like to bake them longer because I like my bread extra crispy and browned.

Recipe by collecting memories

Pizza Cookie

This week I made a delicious coffee fudge tart and had some dough leftovers. I didn't want to throw them away so I decided to make an experiment. I wanted to mix sweet and salty. The dough had sugar in it and was lightly sweet. So I remembered how much I like salty caramel and decided to make something like that - salty sweet, only without caramel. What about... sweet pizza? Oh yes! But don't misunderstand - they don't taste like real pizza. The cookie is crispy, buttery and lightly sweet and the top is spicy. I really didn't think it will turn out so good! I mean it! I just watched them disappearing from the plate. My family absolutely enjoyed them. So what about you? Try them and tell me if you like them. 

1/3 tart dough

1 egg white

1 teaspoon dried basil

pinch black pepper

pinch salt

pinch nutmeg

1 teaspoon chopped garlic

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 teaspoon tomato sauce

coriander, to sprinkle

20g cheese, grated

Roll the dough into a 2-3 mm thick rectangle and cut into 4x4cm squares. Make some mini holes with a fork. Put them on a baking tray lined with a parchment paper. Lightly beat the egg white. Mix in the basil, pepper, salt, nutmeg, garlic, mustard and tomato sauce. Take one cookie and dip it into the egg white mixture to coat evenly. Repeat the process with the remaining cookies. Sprinkle with coriander and cheeese. Bake in a 200 degree C preheated oven until golden brown. (I didn't watch the clock and don't really know how long does it take. But I'm sure you'll see when they're done. If you want them softer, bake until lightly golden. If you want them more crispy, bake until golden brown but don't let them burn - take out of the oven when the top is getting dark brown.) Let cool completely and enjoy!