Hawaiian Pizza

This is my sixth attempt at pizza making. Success after failures tastes especially sweet.

Attempt 1: My first time making a pizza at the cooking school, Palate Sensations. Under the watchful eye of Italian chef, Daniela, I tasted my first home-made pizza.

Attempt 2: Tried the same recipe at home and offered it as dinner for my family. Total flop. No idea what went wrong. The pizza dough tasted like a lump of cooked flour.

Attempt 3: Refused to give up. Afterall, it really seem so straightforward at the cooking school! I pressed the dough really thin and in the end, I got a really tough cracker-like dough. My parents' dentures almost fell off!

Attempt 4: Downloaded a recipe from the internet. Looks simple and promising. But while kneading the dough, the proportion of fluid and flour just didn't seem right. So the result was rather obvious.

Attempt 5: Downloaded another recipe from the internet. Tried this dough immediately after the failure of attempt 4. I'm just on a losing streak. :(

Attempt 6: After weeks of 'recuperating' my morale, I happened to chance upon this pizza recipe in the Sunday Times on 9 September 2007. And BANG...I MADE IT FINALLY!

Hawaiian Pizza

Ingredients:

2 tsp dried yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1.5 cups water, at room temperature I used abit more water as the dough was too dry

600g bread flour

3 tbs olive oil I didn't use this at all. It was left out in the method!

flour for dusting

mozzarella cheese, grated

pasta sauce

ring pineapples in a can, cut into cubes

mushroom, sliced

ham, diced into small rectangles

Method:

(1) Mix yeast, salt, sugar with water in a bowl and wait till mixture bubbles.

(2) Put flour in a large mixing bowl. Make a well in it and pour in yeast mixture.

(3) Mix until the flour and yeast come together in a ball.

(4) Let the dough rise in a cold oven for at least one hour.

(5) Dust dough with some flour.

(6) Roll the dough out into a 20cm round or stretch it by tossing in the air several times. Place in a pizza pan or metal pan.

(7) Spread pasta sauce evenly on the dough and add the toppings.

(8) Bake in a preheated 200°C oven for 10 mins, until cheese is bubbly.

Verdict:

(+) This recipe totally rocks! I made my own pizza in about 2 hours!

(-) I tried to roll the dough flat hoping to get those thin Italian pizza bread but had some difficulties doing it as the dough seems to always 'pull' back towards the centre.

(=) Nevertheless, when the pipping hot pizza came out from the oven, the bread was crispy on the outside and light on the inside! It's like Pizza Hut style!