My pizza-making endeavours

The Caramello Sam Pizza. Taken during the pizza-making class.

Sometime last year, I had an inclination to learn to make pizzas. I felt it would be more affordable and better to learn to make good pizzas on my end than to end up eating merely adequate yet expensive pizzas that are sold in the stores. Furthermore, my hunch tells me that pizzas will be a good food to serve when entertaining guests.

At about the same time, I came across a pizza-making hands-on cooking class that was organized by ToTT. The class was taught by world pizza champion Theo Kalogeracos. I have had a good previous experience attending a hands-on cooking class by ToTT, and so I set my mind to go for this class.

During the hands-on pizza-making class, me and all the other participants learnt to make the basic pizza dough. We then moved on to learn to make the King Prawns Pizza and Caramello Sam Pizza. The former includes succulent prawns as one of the ingredients while the latter is a dessert pizza.

To enable us to make perfect pizzas within a short span of time without having to preheat the oven, we were introduced to the use of a counter-top electric pizza oven designed by Theo Kalogeracos called the Pizza Perfector. This pizza perfector cooks a perfect pizza in about 10 minutes without the need to preheat the oven. The end result was good. I felt very tempted to get one for myself. In the meantime, I shall be budget-conscious and be contented with a normal electric oven. Perhaps one day, I could get a sponsorship to a pizza perfector when I master the art of pizza-making?

One thing that I have learnt from Chef Theo Kalogeracos is that good food is made from the heart. If one puts in one's heart and mind into pizza-making, the pizza will eventually turn out well. In addition, consistent good practice will be essential to master the art of pizza-making. At the end of the class, I was motivated to continue to practise making pizzas from time to time so as become better at making pizzas.

Pizza-making time. Placing the ingredients on the flattened pizza dough.

Making the pizza dough is a therapeutic activity in itself. While it takes quite a bit of effort and concentration to make the dough, the process enabled me to focus on the now.

The end result.

May this post with photographs of my pizza-making attempts entice you to embark on your very own. In the meantime, Happy Lunar New Year.

I made pizzas for this year's Chinese New Year's eve's reunion dinner.
This pizza contains ham, pineapple, mushroom and etc.

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By the way, do check out ToTT's website to see if there is an upcoming pizza-making class by Chef Theo Kalogeracos:
http://www.tottstore.com
http://www.tottstore.com/class_20130331_1.html

ToTT Store
896 Dunearn Road 01-01A
Singapore 589472

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Also see:
http://www.theoandco.net