Vegan pizza, no way! And with a base made of wholemeal spelt flour? Will it taste like cardboard? Of course not. It tastes really good, I even surprised myself. For someone who’s not keen on any cheese unless it’s melted to a complete lava-hot mass I’ve now started to try out things without my much loved cheeses in baked, toasted, grilled or cooked forms. But to give up pizza is harder than giving up on cheese. So I decided to make an all vegan pizza as a trial last week. It tasted amazingly well, but as I made the pizza base super thin, it meant that it got stuck to the baking tray. Usually the white flour doesn’t make the dough as dense as wholemeal, so when I made the pizza dough with mainly wholemeal spelt it was bound to get stuck to the tray, only that I didn’t think of it.
Pizzabase with wholemeal spelt and homemade tomatosauce
I usually say in my Greek Cookery Class www.facebook.com/GreekCookery I teach, sometimes a mistake is good so that we learn why we do things the way we do them, or even better, what not to do next time. So the second time my pizza craving set in really badly I decided to go for a pan pizza, the thicker version of the base.
I went to my local store and bought some fresh and happy looking vegetables for my topping and started with making the base. I used wholemeal spelt flour but also added a little white spelt flour to make the dough less dense. About 1/3 was white and 2/3 was wholemeal.
While I left the dough to prove, I grilled sliced aubergines, sliced up tomatoes and green peppers
Fresh tomatos and peppers
gently softened red onions and button and chestnut mushrooms in some Greek extra virgin olive oil and made my own tomato sauce for the base.
Aubergines before grilling
The best part is assembling the pizza! It’s the most creative part and the easiest too.
My square vegan pizza in the oven
As the pizza came out and I cut it, it was still getting stuck despite the thicker base and more added olive oil on the tray. So I realised, the problem is the tray, it’s not flat, all olive oil pools on the sides leaving the middle part dry. Next time I’m using parchment paper, or baking paper, so that I can stick to my thin base which I prefer. Καλή όρεξη! Enjoy your meal!
Pizza time
My next Greek Cookery Class on 1 July is not as much experimentation and we don’t make pizzas! If you want to be on the mailing list please get in touch on greekcookeryclassATgmailDOTcom and for pictures of what we get up to visit www.facebook.com/GreekCookery
Greekfoodlovers' Supper Club 