Aussie bush pizza

by Ric Tester

This is an excellent recipe to begin with, as it includes a formula for great bread dough.

Ingredients for the base

• baker’s flour (available in 2kg packs from good supermarkets)
• bread improver (also available at supermarkets)
• sachets of dried yeast
• sugar
• salt
• water
• cooking oil

Ingredients for topping

• pasta sauce
• cheese
• 1 tomato
• olives
• anchovies
• pepperoni

Method
Fill half a cup with lukewarm water. Dissolve one teaspoon of sugar and add one pinch of salt. Add one sachet of dried yeast and stir well. Leave for ten minutes and this mixture will froth and start to smell like beer. Add three cups of baker’s flour to a bucket or a large mixing bowl. Add one tablespoon of bread improver and then slowly pour the frothing yeast into the bread mixture. Mix well, add the water and stir the mixture until the lumps coalesce into soft, sticky dough. Place the dough onto a well-floured board and sprinkle flour onto the top of the sticky mix. Using well-floured hands, knead the dough by flattening, folding and turning for about five minutes. Roll the dough into a ball, lightly oil to prevent drying out, and place it into the bucket for 35-45 minutes. This will allow the yeast to do its work and the dough will rise to about double its volume. Covering the bucket with a sheet of cling film works wonders during this process. The dough must be left in a warm (not hot) place in order to rise.

Remove the inflated dough and put it back on your floured board. Gently roll the dough flat to a thickness of about a centimetre (this is a thick base). Oil up a round flat tray (make sure it can fit in the oven) and place your base on it. Trim the base to size - you will have plenty left for more pizza later. Now top the base by spreading a thin coat of pasta sauce over it. Take a block of cheese and grate it evenly over the base. From here, it is up to you; add tomato, olives, anchovies and slices of pepperoni. This makes a great Italian-style pizza.

Once you are happy with your creation, it is time to cook it. Place the cake cooling tray into the oven. The tray will keep the pizza off the bottom of the oven, where it would burn before it was cooked. If you do not have a cooling tray, find three stones - equal in size - and space these evenly on the bottom of the oven. The oven temperature should be about 250 degrees (hot oven). With lid removed, gently lower the pizza into the oven, replace the lid and cover it with hot coals. The beauty of the camp oven design is that the food receives heat from the top and bottom - ensuring great evenness of cooking.

Cooking time should be about ten to 15 minutes. Feel free to check the progress at various intervals by carefully lifting the lid and taking a peek. Look for some browning of the cheese on top - this is a good sign that you are almost there. If you wish, you can remove the pizza from the oven and lift the base off the tray with a spatula. When the base has turned a golden-honey colour, the pizza is cooked. When cooked, carefully remove the pizza from the oven and serve with some fresh basil and a glass of merlot.

As an aside, if you would like to cook some garlic bread, roll out some raw dough and place this on a hot camp oven lid. The lid should be inverted and resting on hot coals. Cook it as you would a pancake. Brush on a mixture of butter and crushed garlic. This makes a great appetiser. Good luck and bon appétit.