Beetroot pizza is something that combines my huge love of pizza (obviously) and my love of beetroot and ends with the best of both worlds – a gorgeous dough with sweeter undertones and a nice purple glow to the crust. Beetroot definitely doesn’t turn pizza into a superfood, but it does make the pizza a bit more exotic and fun to bake. It also opens up a big selection of ingredient combinations to throw on top. I always throw some feta cheese onto my beetroot pizza as they are for sure my favourite combination, whether they’re mixed into a salad or sprinkled onto this beauty!
Indredients:
For the pizza dough:
- Grated beetroot, from 2 beets
- Water from the packaging of the beetroot (no more than 10 mL)
- Self raising flour, 585 g
- Dried yeast, 7 g
- Lukewarm water, 290 mL
- Salt, 2 tsp
- Sugar, 2 tsp
- Olive oil, 2 tbsp
For the toppings:
- Grated mozzarella and red cheddar, 1/2 cup
- Feta cheese, 1/2 cup
- Fresh pesto, 1/4 cup
- Fresh rocket salad, 1/2 cup
- Sundried tomatoes, 10
- Grated beetroot, from 2 beets
Method:
- Begin by making the pizza dough. I first attached the balloon whisk to my Kenwood kMix electric mixer, and added the yeast and water to the mixing bowl first. Mix the wet mixture until the yeast is well mixed into the solution. I then added the grated beetroot, beetroot water, oil, salt and sugar and mixed again well.
- Next, add the dough hook and begin at the slowest setting. Add a quarter of the flour, mix for a minute, take the bowl out and use a spatula to clear any flour stuck to the mixing bowl. Repeat this process four times. When all of the flour is added to the bowl and scraped off the sides, keep the dough hook running slowly for a further 5 minutes.
- Roll the dough out onto a sterilized countertop sprinkled with some extra flour. Roll the dough into a ball and place it back into the mixing bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for an hour minimum.
- Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
- Place the dough onto a counter and cut, down the middle, into 2 separate pieces (this makes 2 pizzas.
- As done in my recipe reel, knead the dough into circles. Place each one onto a separate baking tray. I turn up the ends of one pizza into a nice crust, and with the other, I sprinkled mozzarella and cheddar around the edges and then folded the edge of the dough over it, making a nice stuffed crust.
- Time for the toppings: Add the pesto to the base of the dough and even it out with a spatula, then add the sundried tomatoes, rocket salad, feta cheese and a sprinkle of beetroot.
- Place each tray into the oven for 15 minutes (or another couple if you like your pizza well done).
- After leaving the pizzas to cool for 10 minutes, cut them into separate slices and serve.
The Food Anatomist 