
Need Warming Up!
A few years ago Dave and I made an outdoor pizza oven ourselves from scratch. It took weeks but the end result was worth it. Over the years we had many pizza parties using that oven. You really can’t get better tasting pizza than woodfired pizza. We also used to cook curries, bread, chicken wings, lamb … You name it, we probably cooked it in our pizza oven.


Unfortunately, last year when our business really took off, we needed more room to grow chillies and vegetables and we had to make the hard decision to knock it down. We hated tearing down all our hard work and the memories that came with it, but we needed the room.
Making pizza dough became second nature to me during those years, but since we took it down, I’ve hardly made it, because pizza in the kitchen oven just isn’t the same as a woodfired pizza.
Last night the kids wanted pizza, so I made them pizza! I used our Arrabiata sauce for the pizza base and it tasted really delicious. There was zing, but not enough zing to blow your head off. The kids liked it enough to eat a whole massive pizza each to themselves!!!

To make pizza dough is quite easy, not many ingredients are required. I always use a bit of cumin and garlic powder in my dough – just to be different haha ..



Pizza
Ingredients
- 375 ml Warm water 1 1/2 cups
- pinch Sugar
- 1 sachet Dry yeast 7g
- 4 Cups Plain Flour 600g
- pinch Cumin
- pinch Garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 Cup Olive Oil
- 1/2 Cup Hov’s Arrabiata sauce
Instructions
- Combine water, yeast and sugar in a small bowl and it give it a quick whisk with a fork. Leave for around 5 minutes until it goes foamy.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, cumin, garlic, salt and oil. Combine with your hands. (You can use a mixer with the dough hook, I prefer to use my hands)
- Make a well in the middle and add the yeast mixture.
- With clean hands, bring the dough together until you have a rough ball. Put the rough ball onto a floured surface.
- Knead for around 10-15 minutes, until you have a nice smooth dough ball.
- Add the dough to a large lightly greased bowl and cover with cling wrap. Set aside in a warm spot (I usually leave it on top of the oven, with the oven turned on low) Leave for around 40 minutes, or until it has doubled in size.
- Bring the dough to a lightly floured work spot and cut into 4 small pieces or 2 large pieces.
- Roll the dough with a rolling pin into discs and put onto a pizza stone or tray.
- Add Hov’s Arrabiata sauce for the pizza base and then dress the pizza with your favourite ingredients.
- Put pizza into a hot oven and cook for 15-20 minutes.