Pizza & Calzone Dough recipes

Here are all my favourite pizza dough recipes that has been a staple in my house. I have compiled the recipes from various link that I have surveyed and tried.


Calzone
Recipe source: allrecipes.com

Pizza dough

Normal crust
Recipe source: facebook user kathykay

4 cups of Flour
¼ cups Oil
1 tsp of Salt
2 tsp Sugar
1 ½ cups of Warm water
2 tsp instant Yeast

1. Mix yeast & sugar in warm water and let rest until mixture becomes foam and bubbly
2. In a big bowl, add flour and salt then mix well. 
3. Make a well in the middle and add in Yeast mixture and Oil.
4. Mix the dough with wooded spoon until all has been thorougly mixed.
5. Then knead the dough by hand until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
6. Cover and let rest to prove until double in size.
7. Punch the dough to let the air out and roll to desired shape.
8. Poke the pizza base with a fork, and put topping and cheese.
9. Bake in a preheated oven 180°℃ to 190 °℃ until done (If the bottom still looks pale color, you can change the oven setting to bottom heat and let the pizza bottom to cook for about 5 mins more until golden brown).

No yeast pizza dough
Recipe source: houseofyumm.com

Thin crust pizza dough
Recipe source: thekitchn.com

Simple Make-ahead Frozen Snacks

Early in my baking days, before I knew that it is not that difficult to make pie crust from scratch, I used frozen puff pastry for making pies. Now that I know how to make the pie crust, I still have frozen puff pastry in my freezer for any instant pastry recipe that I need to make. There's varieties of creative ideas to use this. Recently, I have learned that we can also use frozen paratha to make instant pies or puff pastry due to the flaky texture once it has been baked. When I first try baking paratha to make tuna puff, I straightaway fell in love with this. The texture is as not as flaky as the puff pastry but just right for my preference - i don't usually enjoy too flaky pastry that will always leave lots of crumbs on my plate (or on the table i might say 😅)
Lots of ideas i got from some of the instagrammers that I followed that utilize this instant paratha to make many easy and delicious sweet and savoury pastry.
One of the benefit of using this is that you can make it ahead of time and freeze it. So whenever you want to eat it, you can just take it out from the freezer and pop it in the oven to bake. Its as simple as that.

Below are some of the make-ahead meals that I make using frozen puff pastry or paratha.

Tuna puff (using instant Paratha)

Beef bolognese puff (using instant Paratha)

Chocolate puff (using frozen Puff Pastry)

Cheese and chicken puff (using frozen Puff Pastry)

Milo Cookies & Malt Cookies

Since I packs my kid's lunchbox everyday, I always try my best to pack homemade cookies instead of those unhealthy & sugar-packed storebought cookies.
These delicious milo and honey malted cookies recipe that I got from instagram @nurpian04 is perfect for my son's snacks and lunchbox.

Recipe source: Instagram @nurpian04

 Honey Malted Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
125 g Butter @ room temperature
85 g Caster Sugar
1 Egg
2 Tbsp Honey
*40 g Malted powder (I used Milo for half of the cookie dough and another half I used Horlick)
*375 g Plain Flour
*½ tsp Baking Soda
*½ tsp Cream of Tar Tar

Sieve ingredients marked *

METHOD:

1. Beat butter, sugar and egg with a mixer until combined. 
2. Then add in honey and mixture marked *. Continue mixing slowly until smooth.
3. Preheat oven to 150°C n line baking trays with baking paper.
4. Roll dough between sheets of baking paper and cut the dough using your preferred cookie cutter. 
5. Bake @ 150°C oven for about 15 minutes or until done.

Milo Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

185 g unsalted butter

140 g Brown Sugar

1 Egg

1 tsp Vanila Essence

270 g Self Raising Flour (sifted)

150 g Milo powder (sifted)

2 tsp Fresh Milk

Choc chips to sprinkle on top of the cookies.

METHOD:

1. Beat butter and brown sugar with a mixer until thoroughly mixed. Add in egg and vanilla essence then mixed well.
2. Stir in milo and flour, mix with your hand or a wooden spatula. Add in milk and mix again. The dough will appear quite soft, thus you can chilled the dough in the fridge for about 30 mins for easy handling.
3. Scoop the dough about 1 tsp or so and roll the dough into a small ball and layer all on a tray. Press the dough ball with a fork to flatten it and sprinkle with choc chip or any sprinkles that you desired. 
4. Bake @130°C preheated oven for about 15 mins or until done. 

Healthier version of Pecan Pies

I was browsing through Facebook posts when I found this video from Tip Hero on Mini Pecan Pies using dates. Since I looooveeeee pecan pies, this recipe really attracts my attention especially it is a healthier version recipe and the steps are quite easy. So I quickly get to baking without wasting any time since I already have a box of dates in my fridge and also my frozen homemade pie dough that I have make ahead of time which is part of my meal planning menu. The result is so delicious and even my husband that does not eat dates also like this.(*psst..he still doesn't know that I used dates in the recipe 😁)

Recipe source: Tip Hero

1 sheet of Pie dough
12 pitted Dates
2 Large Eggs
¼ tsp of Nutmeg
¼ tsp of Salt
¾ tsp of Cinnamon
½ tsp of Vanilla extract
2 Tbsp of Honey (original recipe uses Molasses, but I don't have any so I substitute this with honey)
1 Tbsp Maple syrup
¼ cup of melted Butter
¾ cup of Pecan

1. Prepare pie dough, cut into small circle and put each in greased mini muffin tin.
2. Put dates and eggs in a food processor and processed until the dates has become like a puree.
3. Then add nutmeg, salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, honey, maple syrup and butter and continue pulsing until all ingredients has thoroughly mix.
4. Next add in pecan and pulse few times until pecan are finely chopped.
5. Scoop about a teaspoon or so of the mixture in each of the muffin tin that has been layered with the pie dough. Arrange 1 or half of pecan in each mini pies for decoration.
6. Bake in a preheated oven (175 degree Celcius) for about 20 mins or until done.

Cauliflower Sauce

I have been trying to eat clean lately and I am quite excited when I found this recipe of the healthy white cream sauce from Pinch of Yum. The steps in making this is quite easy as well especially when you have a hand blender. 
The sauce is thick and creamy, but I would say that my picky son and husband still not approved this as a pasta sauce because of the cauliflower taste. But I have no problem eating it as I am really ok with tasting new flavors. However it is still acceptable for them to use this as a pizza sauce. So the leftovers has been used for a healthy option for my pizza sauce using the whole wheat pizza dough recipe from the same website. See my blog post on this pizza dough here.

Anyway, I was thinking of remaking this recipe using a combination of cauliflower and carrot so that we will have the sweetness of the carrot infuse in the sauce too. Will keep the blog updated for this.


Recipe source: Pinch of Yum

INGREDIENTS:
5 cloves of minced garlic
2 tablespoons butter
About 5 cups of cauliflower florets
6 cups of vegetable broth (use the same broth from the water from boiling cauliflower)
Salt and Pepper 

½ cup or more of Milk (depends on your desired consistency)

1. Boiled the cauliflower until tender but not too soft (test with a fork, if it can be poke with fork then it is done). Take out the cauliflower floret  and keep the broth to be used later.

2. Heat a skillet and saute butter and garlic until fragrant. Remove from heat.

3. In a bowl of the cooked cauliflower, add 1 cup of vegetable broth first, the sauteed garlic & butter, salt, pepper and milk. Blend the mixture with a hand blender (you can do this with food processor or even normal blender), adding more broth or milk until the sauce is smooth or until you get to your desired consistency. You can even add other spices or chicken stock if you want to give the sauce more kick and more flavorful.

I used this cauliflower sauce to make this healthy carbonara spagethi.

               
                                                                   

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

On my mission to eat clean but still enjoying food, I always substitute white flour with whole wheat flour for baking. So when I came across this website from Pinch of Yum on a healthier version of Pizza dough, I straightaway grab my rolling pin and get start to baking without any hesitation. I even made 2 batch and keep 1 batch in my freezer to use it for my weekly Pizza Friday day meal.
I also have tried the Cauliflower Cream sauce recipe from the same website mentioned in my blog here and use it for the based of my pizza. It was delish. 
The best thing about this pizza dough is that you won't have to wait for more than 1 hour for the dough to prove. You just need to let it sit for 15 mins and then can start rolling it into your preferred thickness, put the topping of your choice and straight in the oven it goes.

I am using Cauliflower white sauce that I made here.

Source: Pinch of Yum

1. First I combined 1¼ cups of White flour, 2¼ tsp of Yeast and 1 tsp Salt (but the recipe called for ½ tsp only) in my mixing bowl. I added 2 tsp of Sugar too (which is not in the original recipe) - my husband prefer more flavorful dough instead of bland taste dough. 
2. Then I add 2 Tbsp of Corn oil and 1 cup of warm Water to the mixture and start my mixer and get it mixing for few minutes until all ingredients combined and and looks like a thick batter. 
3. Next I added 1⅓ cups of hi protein Whole Wheat Bread Flour (you can use normal whole wheat flour, I use what I have in my pantry at that moment).  
4. When all is thoroughly mixed, gently knead by hand until the dough become soft and elastic.
5. Cover the dough, let it rise for about 15 minutes in a warm place.
6. Then take out the dough and roll it into your desired shape and thickness. Poke with fork before putting the topping. 
7. Layer the topping and cheese and bake in a preheated oven (190 degree Celcius) until the dough turns golden brown and the cheese has perfectly melted.
8. Enjoy!! 😋

Broccoli Nuggets

My picky eater son like green color so it's easy for me to trick him into eating hidden green vege.
I started experimenting with Broccoli Nuggets recipe that I found from Momables website here. I told my son that I am making him a green nuggets. So he was so excited to see the outcome of the so called 'green' nuggets.
The first time I make this nuggets, I added some shredded cooked chicken in order to hide the strong taste of the broccoli. When my son came back from school seeing those nuggets waiting for him in the kitchen, he immediately grabbed it and shoved it into his mouth. And with a big grin, he gave me a thumbs up! He even asked me to pack these nuggets for his lunchbox the next day. And occasionally he asked me to make them again. Yeay!!!
So here's the recipe that I have amended to add the cooked chicken.

I even tried the recipe as is (without the cooked chicken) the 2nd time I made  this and my son can't even tell the difference and still liking it 😊 I really glad I came across this recipe. Do give it a try.

Recipe source: Momables

INGREDIENTS:
300g broccoli (that has been chopped coarsely and blanced for a few minutes in hot water) 
150g shredded cooked chicken
3 eggs
1 cup bread crumbs
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon chicken seasoning
½ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon salt

METHODS:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Put broccoli in a food processor and processed until finely chopped.
Add the rest of the ingredients and processed until all has mixed thoroughly.
Scoops the mixture using a cookie scoop or a small ice cream scoops and place in a silicon sheets.
Press to flatten them a bit. 
Then bake until done or until its golden brown in a preheated 190 degree Celcius oven.