Whole Wheat No Yeast Cheese Pizza

Say pizza to your parents and they began advising you on how bad it is to eat pizza. My mom loves to cook and try out new things in the kitchen. Few days back she attended a cookery class and there she learnt that things like pizza, burgers or noodles aren’t that bad and there tons of healthy twists for these recipes. My mom is a simple person who doesn’t understand things like yeast, brewing or caramelizing, she sticks to the basic Indian spices and simple style of cooking. She rang me and asked for a basic pizza dough recipe, when I mentioned maida/all purpose flour and yeast she showed no further interest.

Now, after one month, she sends me the pictures on her special home cooked pizza on what’s app. I was shocked to see how amazing the pizza looked and I was so proud that she did not give up and finally came with her own recipe. I quickly gave her a call to ask what’s in the recipe-It is a whole wheat no yeast pizza she said, no pizza sauce she further added. After the long conversation when the call ended I knew I had to try this in my kitchen.

Instead of yeast she used yogurt (dahi) and she replaced tomato ketchup with pizza sauce. Mr. Husband loves crispy thin crust pizzas and thus the whole wheat flour was the perfect choice as it doesn’t rise much and you get great hard crusty touch.  Since this was the first time I was trying the recipe, I made the simple cheese pizza without any toppings. You go ahead and use any toppings of your choice like the ones I did for New Yorker Pizza, you can also use bell pepper pizza sauce for this recipe. I so very much wanted to show you the pics of the base but there was no time and hungry husband was in not-so-good mood ;). As you can see the pizza pics are also average, sorry about that too, but here goes (very proudly) my mom’s Whole Wheat No Yeast Cheese Pizza recipe.

Ingredients:

For the dough:

1 cup Whole Wheat Flour/atta
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
4 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup yogurt/dahi
2 tablespoon Italian herbs
Salt to taste

Little water (if needed)

For pizza

2 tablespoons tomato ketchup

1 teaspoon Italian herbs

1/2 teaspoon red chilli flaked

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

Method:

In a small bowl mix baking powder and yogurt. Leave aside for 1 minute.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together all the ingredients and knead soft dough. Keep kneading till the dough is smooth and doesn’t stick to the bowl. Leave aside for 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven at 200c.

Take the pizza pan/tray and grease it with little oil.

Take the dough and roll out in the desired shape and size. I made one large size thin crust. Poke some holes with fork.

Bring the temperature down to 180c and put the pizza pan in oven for 5-8 minutes. Turn and cook the other side for 5-8 minutes. You want the base to strong and half-cooked.

Prepare the sauce. Mix tomato ketchup with Italian herbs, chilli flakes and 2 tablespoons of cheese.

Turn the pizza base, and apply this sauce on it. Spread the cheese all over and cook again in oven till cheese is melted.

Slice and serve.

Notes:

You can use all purpose flour too for this recipe.

Make use of any oil, if you cannot find olive oil. I used this organic olive oil

My mom used carom seeds/ajwain in the dough recipe because she was out of Italian herbs.

You can also make use of grated paneer instead of mozzarella cheese, like here.

If you can’t find mozzarella cheese, any cheese like cheddar, amul or britannia will also do.

For toppings, use sweet corn, capsicum, onions, tomatoes, chilli peppers...anything.

Serving suggestions:

Serve with coke or any cold drink like orange lemonade or rose ice tea.

Adults must pair it up with wine or Indian vodka mojito or bloody mary.