I am a pizza making machine!
In the past seven days I have made no less than 6 batches of pizza dough and used it to make three different pizza creations.
I’ve made regular flat boring pizza, pizza pockets, and I’ve filled my freezer with a zillion pizza rolls to see us through school lunches for about a week.
Today I found myself with a little bit of dough left over. I couldn’t face making another pizza roll and there wasn’t enough toppings for a regular pizza, so I made a new pizza incarnation – the pizza twist!
Pizza twists are the perfect thing to make when you have a bit of left over dough and a spoonful or two of pizza sauce, not enough to make a whole pizza, but enough for some delicious pizza bread sticks!
You can fill these with whatever toppings you like, just make sure you chop them into small pieces so they don’t fall out of the twisty bits. And don’t be tempted to over fill these, even too much cheese will have all the toppings bubbling out onto the tray instead of staying put on the dough.
My favourite topping option is no topping… just garlic and tomato pizza sauce, some cheese and lots of herbs!
Ingredients
For the Dough
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250 mls luke warm water
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2 tsp yeast
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1 tsp sugar
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3 tbs olive oil
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500 gms of bread flour or plain flour.
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pinch of salt
For the Pizza Sauce
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1 egg
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1/2 cup tomato paste
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1 tbsp water
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minced garlic and herbs to taste.
Pizza Fillings
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Grated mozzarella cheese
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Herbs
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Any other pizza toppings you like, chopped into small pieces.
Instructions
To Make the Pizza Dough
- Combine the yeast, sugar and warm water and set aside for five minutes until the yeast begins to bubble.
- Add the olive oil to the yeast mixture.
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of your bread machine, combine the flour and salt and make a well in the centre.
- Add the yeast mixture into the flour and slowly combine wet and dry ingredients until you form a dough - add more water a table spoon at a time, if needed.
- Knead the dough and set aside to rise. Or use your bread machine on the dough setting to knead and rise the dough.
- Once the dough has doubled in sized, knock the air out of it with a quick knead and you are ready to go.
To Make the Pizza Sauce
- Crack the egg into a small bowl, add the water and whisk well.
- Add the tomato paste (more or less depending on the number of pizzas you are making), garlic and herbs and mix well.
- Add more water if needed to make a thick but spreadable sauce.
Making the Pizza Twists.
- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
- Line several large trays with baking paper.
- Prepare the sauce and chop any pizza toppings you want to use.
- Divide the dough into two pieces so it is easier to work with.
- On a well floured surface, roll the dough into a large rectangle shape about 1-1.5 cms thick.
- Spread the dough with pizza sauce going right to the edges.
- On one half of the dough add the cheese, whatever other toppings you like and a sprinkle of herbs - don't add to much!
- Fold the dough over to form a big sandwich with the topping on the inside, pressing down slightly to make sure everything sticks together.
- Cut 3-4 cm wide strips from the dough sandwich, twist each strip and place it on the tray
- Bake the pizza twists a hot oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese just begins to brown.
- Eat them while they are still warm!!
These are so much quicker and easier to make than the pizza rolls I’ve been sending to school so I think we might try some of these in the lunch boxes too.
I’ll let you know how they go!
I get so many requests for pizza (from my husband, Mr. Almost-3 is apparently on a food strike) and UGH! It’s so time consuming! THESE look great! And MIGHT even convince my toddler to eat them, since they LOOK like mostly bread (but secretly contain lots of goodies)!
Ah yes.. what is with three year olds suddenly refusing to eat all the stuff they ate last week??