Have you ever had the moment of having a home-made pizza ready within half an hour, but you don’t have frozen pizza dough ready and you can’t wait for the yeast dough to rise? I certainly did. Sometimes we make our lunch decision too late, we end up not having enough time for the food to be ready, especially when it comes to food that involves yeast. Yet we are too lazy to go out, as the nearest pizza restaurant that serves vegan pizza is 30 minutes away. So a quick pizza was born.

This pizza crust is light, slightly thicker than the super thin yeast version we’re used to eat, but still thin enough to be balanced (we don’t like thick crust so much), and it has slightly crunchy edge part. The portion is big enough for two of us. I prefer not to put the salt into the sauce, as the pizza dough is already salted and the vegan chorizo sausage is quite salty. Vegan cheese generally doesn’t melt well as the dairy counterpart, but is still decent enough for us to enjoy. Or, if you happen to know a vegan cheese brand that melts so well, please let me know!

Kitchen Gadgets: Oven

Makes 1 pizza (30cm diameter)

Ingredients

pizza dough:

• 1 ¼ cup (310ml) bread flour
• 1 ½ tsp (7.5ml) baking powder
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) salt
• ½ cup (125ml) water
• 2 tbsp (30ml) olive oil
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) to 3 tsp (15ml) extra flour (optional, used when dough is too wet to handle)

pizza sauce:

• 1 cup (250ml) chunky tomato
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) basil
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) oregano

pizza topping:

• 1 small yellow onion, sliced into rounds
• ½ vegan chorizo sausage (100g), sliced
• 8 small cherry tomatoes, sliced into rounds
• 3 tbsp (45ml) black olives, sliced into rounds
• ½ cup (125ml) arugula leaves (leave some fresh ones aside as topping after pizza is baked)
• ½ cup (125ml) vegan pizza cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 225 °C. If you’re using pizza stone, place it in at the lowest shelf.
2. Prepare the dough first. Mix flour, baking powder and salt well.
3. Add water and olive oil, blend and mix the batter into a dough.
4. Transfer the dough onto a silicone mat or slightly floured surface. Note this dough is supposed to be soft, so you might find it a bit tricky to handle. Just work with your hands quickly after a while it will come together as a smooth dough. I found in slightly humid weather the dough might get a bit extra sticky, add a bit flour by ½ tsp each time and knead it until it’s just ok to handle with. Never add too much as it tends to dry the dough.
5. After dough becomes smooth, transfer it to a piece of baking paper. I found it’s easier to lift the pizza onto the hot pizza stone this way.
6. Spread, expand and pat your dough until it becomes a 30cm round pizza dough. Use a fork to dig some holes on it.
7. Prepare the sauce by adding crushed garlic, basil and oregano into crushed tomato, mix well. Spoon them and spread evenly on the top of the pizza dough.
8. Place the topping ingredients, and spread the pizza cheese evenly.
9. Lower the heat to 200 °C now, put the pizza onto the pizza stone. Bake for 15 minutes.
10. After it’s almost done place the pizza on the highest rank in your oven to have the cheese melt a bit more, bake for 2-3 minutes.
11. Now the pizza is ready to be served!