Quick and Easy Pizza

Everyone in my house loves pizza, my husband and Moo especially. I'm quite ashamed to admit how much of our entertainment budget goes onto take-away pizza but with me not being so mobile recently, it has been a bit more than usual (oh, the shame).

For a couple of years now, I've been making them from scratch from home as a quick and easy dinner, especially for Moo. Here's my recipe for pizza base and sauce! Oh great, now I'm hungry...

Base.

- One and a half cups of self-raising flour (plain doesn't affect it much, it's just flatter).

- Dash of salt.

- One cup of water.

I've used the measurement of 'cups' because that's literally what I use; a cup. It's small and plastic and the perfect size to make one pizza base. A small beaker like mine or small mug, is ideal. Pop your flour and salt in before adding the water a little at a time, mixing as you go until you form a dough. You probably won't need the whole cup of water, if the dough is too wet then add more flour.

Place your ball of dough onto a floured work top and knead to ensure that it's got no sticky spots before rolling out to your desired thickness and size. To shorten the cooking time, you can quickly fry your base for a couple of minutes to help it along and stop it from absorbing the moisture from the sauce.

Sauce.

- Tin of chopped tomatoes.

- Drop of Oil.

- Dash of salt.

- Three cloves of garlic.

- Two teaspoons tomato purée (optional).

Chuck the lot into a blender and whizz together. The tomato purée helps to thicken the sauce but we often make it without and it works fine though can make the dough a little soggy (I secretly like it that way...shhh...). Once you've got our sauce how you like, simply spread it over your base.

Toppings.

We generally use whatever we have kicking around the fridge before popping on top some grated mild cheddar and sliced mozzarella. Putting the cheese on top stops the toppings from burning in the oven.

Pop your pizza into the oven at about 180c (gas mark 4...?), it should take 10-15 minutes to cook.

Voila!

Quick and easy pizza lushness!

Clare

Quick and Easy Microwave Sponge Cake

Hello all! Today is my twenty-seventh birthday and so in light of that today I'm going to share my go-to recipe for a quick and easy sponge cake that you can make in the microwave. I use his mainly for a quick pudding, served with custard to keep little tummies happy. I'll be honest, it's not going to win you any baking competitions, but it does well to satisfy a craving or feed desert to a small person.

Apologies for the photos, they are taken from the Cut Out and Keep tutorial I wrote for this about two years ago.

This recipe uses mainly things that you have kicking around in your kitchen cupboards which is what makes it so great. You will need...

- A microwave.

- A ceramic or glass bowl.

- A table spoon.

- A knife.

- 4x table spoons self-raising flour. If you only have plain, the same amount with a third of a table spoon of baking powder also works.

- 4x table spoons sugar. White preferably though a brown sugar sponge is also nice.

- 3x table spoons milk.

- 3x table spoons oil/cooking fat (I use that liquid Flora).

- 1x egg.

- A few drops of vanilla essence. You can replace this with two take spoons of chocolate powder for a chocolates treat.

1.
Gather your items Before placing your flour and sugar (and baking powder and/or chocolate powder if using) into your bowl and mix together.

2.
Add the milk, oil, egg and vanilla (if using) and mix together thoroughly, making sure nothing is stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

3.
Once you're sure that it's all mixed together and there's no dry ingredients hiding at the bottom, pop the bowl in the microwave for 2.5 minutes on full (3 if you have a less powerful microwave).

4.
PING! You should be all cooked now and ready to roll. Be careful taking it out of the microwave using gloves.

5.
Score around the outside of the cake using a knife before using a spoon to help tip it out onto a plate or into a bowl before serving as you wish (like I said, custard's pretty tasty).

So there you have it! Like I said, you won't win a blue ribbon with it but it's quite tasty!

Clare