Homebaked Family night Pizza!

I'm a Pizzaterian..you know..when you only eat Pizza! I bet there's no better feeling in the world than a warm slice on your plate and so I take the occasional risk of downing pizza despite the 'good diet' concerns.

Now..since eating out happens often in my case, those 'to-die-for' pizza's often turn deadly for the weight conscious foodie me! SO, as an amateur experimental baker, I decided to give my cravings a healthier chance and I attempted baking a pizza at home! From the scratch! AND by golly it was good! (Or so said the gobblers).

Pizza is a lot easier to make from scratch than you might think. So for an easy cheezy Pizza I started by preparing a dough by mixing together:

1 and 1/2 cups All purpose flour/Maida
1 tsp instant yeast (or) 1 tbsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/8 cup oil
1 tsp sugar
salt to taste

Recipe credits: www.sharmispassions.com 

Combining it all together with a cup of warm water. I set aside this dough to rise for about an hour at room temperature. This was yet another experiment where I did not separately proof the yeast in water before adding it to the flour and rather threw everything in together at once..worked well for me (Make sure you use fresh yeast ONLY for these experiments).

Flour, oil. yeast, sugar, salt 

The risen dough after an hour

A little tip here:
If you don't want to bake an instant pizza like me, the pizza dough can be wrapped in cling film and frozen till whenever you want to bake next. Just remember to take the dough out of the freezer and bring it to room temperature first. Cold dough is never a good idea.

My next step was sneaking out some of mom made thick tomato puree (made out of crushed fresh tomatoes and frozen). I punched and flattened the risen dough and then rolled it out in a nice big round with thick edges. Next I placed the rolled dough on a well greased microwave baking plate. Generously spread out the tomato paste on the rolled dough, added Salt, Oregano, Italian seasoning, Chilly flakes and pepper on it and topped it with cheese (I prefer mozzarella).

Ready to go into the Microwave!

Since this was going to be a first time experiment, I stuck to keeping it to a simple (less) cheese pizza (minus veggies). It can be quite strenuous to be a foodie AND lazy at that..and so if I can bake it..anybody can!!

Next comes the baking part. Bake it on 180°c for about 10 mins first and then move to high i.e 210°c for another 10 mins (that's what they do in restaurants).

Freshly baked

Bake, and voila! With all the endless topping combinations available, you can get rid of those carry out menus!!

Slice n Gobble!

Nothing like a freshly baked homemade pizza

This homemade pizza is fabulous! It has the perfect thickness, softness and yumminess! Don't let the long intenet recipes scare you..'cause once a homemade Pizza maker..always one!

Happy Baking!

Cakes..bakes and the story of heartbreaking colors!

Color Chagrin !

The efforts put into baking that perfect, fluffy, yummy sponge of a cake deserves nothing short of a slow clap standing ovation...or so I feel every time that heavenly smelling, 'sweet achievement' pops out of my microwave. Once you master the basic sponge, the world is your oyster. You're all set to play! Play with frostings, icing, decorations, fondants (that come much later), AND COLOR!

SO it was the cousin's birthday and with the exhilaration of having yet another chance to bake I thought of making a colorful cake. The only problem was- colors! Having baked colorful cakes earlier, I had disappointing experiences of dull and absolutely changed (browned) colors post the cake being baked.

Much internet research..googling every possible reason..reading all important bloggers and you tube videos could not find me an answer. Finally, expert advice from baker friends suggested the use of high quality gel based food colors. So lo and behold..some very expensive branded and high end gel colors were ordered. uncontainable excitement got me to immediately get on with baking.

'Good quality' Gel colors

So i made this 'full spectrum' cake, praying with every breath for it to come out spectacularly bright. BUT ALAS! Disappointment set in yet again. The brightness of the 'branded' colors stayed only till the batter.

Dull colors on cake

Home made tempered chocolate designs come to the rescue

Now Multi-colored cakes can be a lot of fun, but ensuring the cake comes out the way it was envisioned is pretty challenging, and I'm yet to figure out the way to successfully overcome it. While baking is a science and measurements are a must, there are no rules that can be followed to get everything perfect at once.


Like they say Things are not always what they seem..the first appearance deceives many and that's exactly what happened with my batter and the final cake! check out the pictures below..

Bright yet deceiving batter colors!

The disappointing final product

Baking is a like a love affair.. a tumultuous one...and just like that Cakes have a terrible habit of turning out bad just when you especially want them to be good. So till the time I figure out how to get my dream relationship with an edible rainbow..ill keep the experimental baking on nonetheless 😉 

Hoping to share the solutions soon! Till then Happy Baking!