Pink Pizza, what is that?! Our oldest son all of a sudden got infected by the ‘I want to cook something myself’ virus. For years, I’ve had this children’s cookbook in the cupboard, waiting for that moment when the kids would be old enough, and willing, to start cooking themselves. I guess this was the moment to get it out. Alright, pick something… I said.

Pink Pizza

Totally engrossed, he searched through the recipes. And then: yes, got it, I want to make this. This… is pink pizza. That was not entirely what I had expected, to be honest. The smoked salmon might have had something to do with this particular choice (he just loooooves smoked salmon).

Not available

In the recipe, they use a boxed mix for ciabatta bread (store brand). And a jar of sliced beetroot in its juice. I hardly ever use ready-made mixes, but as this was my son’s project and he wanted to do as much by himself as possible, I wanted to follow the recipe to the letter and get everything on that ingredient list. Unfortunately, the cookbook’s already a few years old and a few of those specific ingredients were not available anymore (not by that particular store brand). Rethink and adapt.

I want to make this

He wanted to make this recipe so bad. Alright sweetie, we’ll make something up then. I’ve got a great pizza recipe, but I’ve never added (pureed) veggies to the dough. Which meant that we had to experiment a bit with the ratios. It did turn out surprisingly well. For the jar of sliced beetroot, I used whole cooked beets.

Delicious pizza

The end result was an utterly delicious pizza. The pureed beets not only gave the pizza a wonderful pinkish colour, it added a subtle beet root flavour to the dough. As an added bonus, you’ll get an extra fix of veggies with your pizza. Everyone loved it! This pink pizza has to go on the rotation. And no, this pink pizza is not only for girls (the guys in this house will happily vouch for that) ;-).

Ingredients

300 g cooked beetroot (ca. 250 ml pureed)

7 g yeast (1 pouch)

250 ml warm water (not too hot)

700 g spelt flour (500 + 200)

1 tbsp salt

200 g cream cheese

200 g smoked salmon

1 bag of arugula (75 g)

1 shallot, thinly sliced

Instructions

Pour the warm water in a bowl and add the yeast (make sure the water is not too hot). Let proof for 5 minutes.

Puree the beets in a food processor or blender.

Mix the cream cheese with 1 or 2 tablespoons of beet puree and put in the refrigerator until ready to use.

Put the yeast mixture, beet puree and 500 g of the flour in a large mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer and mix well.

Add the rest of the flour and the salt and knead until you get an elastic dough. If it’s still too sticky, add a little bit more flour.

Cover the bowl with cling film and put in a warm place.

Let rise for 20-30 minutes.

By the way, cooking also means cleaning the dishes (while waiting for the dough to rise) ;).

Dust the worktop with flour, divide the dough in two and roll into a circle. I made two round pizza’s, but you could also make a sheet pizza. When making two pizza’s the crust will be fairly thick, more like a deep pan pizza. If you’d rather have a thin crust pizza, divide the dough into four and thinly roll it out.

Bake the crusts without any toppings, for about 15 to 20 minutes. The crust might get all puffed up. Pierce it with a knife or a fork to let the air out (be careful, the steam will be hot!).

Take the crust out of the oven and spread the beet-cheese mixture on top.

Shred the salmon with your hands and divide over the two crusts.

Scatter the arugula and sliced shallot on top.

Enjoy!

Love pizza? Give this Spelt Pizza with Chicken Mince, Veggies and Feta a try!