The Mountain Pizza

Now this idea was inspired by a pizza i had in Arizona earlier this year, where they would stuff the base of the pizza rather than stuffing the crusts, giving a much deeper and 'meatier' pizza to bite into. By stuffing both the crusts and the base, each slice really does feel like an entire meal, and it can be a challenge to fit it into the humble oven, but i can promise you that it's definitely worth a try! Serves a small country (or 12 ravenous people).

Pizza Dough (for this pizza double the mixture..at least!)

• Combine 375g strong white flour, pinch of salt and 7g dry active baking yeast in a large bowl.
• Mix in 2 tbsp olive oil and 225ml of warm water, then leave the dough (covered) to rise for 20 minutes.

Construction

• Pre heat the oven to 180C
• Roll out just over half of the dough forming a giant base (approx. 18'') and transfer to a lined baking tray.
• Spread a tomato sause base (i use passata) on the dough, leaving a large gap around the outside and top with grated cheese. Thinly slice strips of cheese and place around the tomato sauce circle in the middle, this cheese will form the stuffed crust.
• Roll out the remaining dough to form a circle slightly smaller than the previous one, and place on top of the first base.
• Then, taking the bottom base, bring the sides over the cheese strips and clamp onto the top base and continue around the pizza, forming the crust. If it doesn't hold in place well, brush over with a little egg or water.
• Bake the pizza for 10 minutes. This allows time for the dough to cook a little and make sure the base stuffing won't get overlooked.
• Now top the pizza as you would an ordinary pizza. For this particular mountain pizza, i used chilli con carne as a base topped with cheese, mushrooms, peppers, chillies, olives, chicken, pepperoni, tomatoes and more cheese, with a few herbs and spices thrown in for good measure!
• Then depending on its size bake in the oven for around 20-25 minutes until golden brown and piping hot.

In the case of leftovers...served hot or cold this pizza makes a FANTASTIC midnight snack, lazy morning breakfast, or (and) packed lunch for work!