Serving size: Serves 6
Cuisine type: Italian
Cooking time: More than 1 hour
Course: Lunch, Main, Snacks

INGREDIENTS

Dough
1 sachet dried yeast
1 kg baker's flour
1 teaspoon caster sugar
1 cup warm water
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Topping
¼ Queensland blue pumpkin, cut into 1 cm squares
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup verjuice
sea salt
freshly cracked pepper
½ cup pitted kalamata olives
1 cup boccincini, cut into quarters

METHOD

For the dough, combine the yeast, 1 teaspoon of the flour, caster sugar and warm water and whisk together. Stand in a warm place until yeast activates, about 5-10 minutes. Slowly add in the flour and salt until a stiff dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and drizzle the dough with olive oil. Knead the olive oil into the dough until dough is shiny and bounces back to touch. Let dough rise covered for half an hour.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Turn the dough out and roll the dough to a ½ cm thickness and place onto a well oiled tray. Top with your favourite pizza sauce and par bake the dough for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and top with the pumpkin and bocconcini topping.

For the topping, begin with preheating oven to 200°C. Toss the chopped pumpkin in the olive oil and season with the salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 180°C and on a flat baking tray with a lip, spread out the pumpkin so the pieces have room around them. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes or until pumpkin is golden brown. Open the oven and deglaze the pumpkin with the Verjuice by drizzling it over. Return to the oven for a further five minutes. Remove from oven and let cool. Chop the olives roughly. Place the bocconcini onto the set pizza base and then add the pumpkin and olives. Return to a 200°C oven for 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and a bit brown.

Another great version of this is to lightly fry some sage leaves in nut brown butter and olive oil and use in place of olives after the pizza is cooked.