Four-Cheese and Sage Pizza

From Gourmet Traveller Annual Cookbook, ACP Magazines, 2006.

Though I started with this recipe to make the pizza base I didn’t exactly follow the cheese ingredients. I had the remains of some different cheeses in the refrigerator so thought I would try this recipe to use them up hence my four cheeses were: cheddar, gruyere, a smoked cheese, Parmesan cheese.

The pizza base was made by stirring 7.5g dried yeast into a little water until it had dissolved. A tablespoon of strong flour was then stirred in and the mixture was covered and left for 30 minutes.  I then measured out 200g flour into a large bowl and mixed in the yeast liquid, about 100ml water and ½ teaspoon salt. These were kneaded for 10 minutes to become a wonderfully elastic dough. This was placed in an oiled bowl, covered and left for 2 hours. It was then rolled out to become the base and fitted into a pizza pan.

The four cheeses were grated and scattered over the pizza base, some sage leaves were sprinkled on top as well as some sliced black olives. It went into a 250ºC oven for 10 minutes and came out golden and totally tempting.

This was richly cheesy and indulgent. I could only manage 4 slices and certainly wanted to eat more but felt I had reached my limit.

Taste: ✔✔✔✔

Ease of cooking: ✔✔✔