Hello hungry peoples,

Happy Easter everyone! I’m planning to use our glut of soon to be received chocolate eggs to do some baking. I am thinking a creme egg brownie might be something I need to get into my pie hole. This week I have been working on some fig recipes (as they are in season in Canberra) as well as perfecting my sweet potato fries. Weirdly soaking them in water seem to be the trick to getting them deliciously crispy. I have been meaning to try this fig pizza recipe for ages but have been deterred by either not being able to get figs or the fact that no-one else in my family will eat them. I swear my family would be happy with mac and cheese and spaghetti bolognaise on rotation.

For those of you with a more refined palate this is  a classic flavour combination that is commonly found in hipster cafes. Do not be deterred by the perceived fancy-ness, it is super easy to make at home and super delicious! Some recipes only bake the pizza base with tomato paste and then add the toppings cold. I am not a fan of this because crispy prosciutto and melty goats cheese is a very good thing. I do top it with baby spinach and rocket after cooking, which adds a nice light element to all of that richness. Using just rocket is more traditional but I find the mix balances out the peppery-ness of the rocket. As always, you can buy a pre-made pizza base if you don’t feel up to making your own. Costco even sells balls of frozen dough if you prefer.  Let’s get into it!

Dough (makes four pizzas)

• 550 g plain flour
• 200 g coarse semolina flour
• 250 g continental flour
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 3-4 cups warm water

Topping

• 4 figs
• 4 slices prosciutto
• 50 g goats cheese
• Handful of rocket and baby spinach
• 2 tbsp tomato paste

Cooking Directions

1. Put your pizza stone into the oven. Turn the oven onto it’s highest setting fan forced. You need a piping hot oven to cook good pizza.
2. Combine your flours into a bowl and mix.
3. Make a small well in the flour and put the teaspoon of yeast and sugar in with a bit of warm water to make a wet paste. Leave it for a bit to give the yeast a chance to get going.
4. Make another separate well in the flour and add the tbsp of salt. Dissolve in some warm water and mix into the flour.
5. Add about 3-4 cups of warm water to the flour to make a nice wet dough. You can add more flour later to make a more workable dough. Use a dough hook on your mixer (or do some old school kneading) to mix everything together. Leave your dough on the bench for about an hour while you oven heats up.
6. Next the toppings. Slice the figs and crumble the goats cheese. I like to separate the prosciutto into strips.
7. Grab a generous fistful of dough and roll it out nice and thin.
8. Take your pizza stone out of the oven. Drizzle some olive oil on one side of the pizza dough.
9. Put the dough on the stone, oiled side down. Use a spoon to spread the tomato paste on top of the dough.
10. Add yours figs, prosciutto and goats cheese and pop your pizza in the oven.
11. Everything should be cooked in about 5-10 minutes. Top with rocket and baby spinach. That’s it, your done!

p.s. You can freeze the remaining dough into individual portions.