Playful Pizza Dough by Sweetpea Pantry

I was hooked at the tagline! Super food for super kids… yes please, sign me up 🙂 Sweetpea Pantry was started by an old colleague of mine and her friend in London, and from the day I heard about it I was hooked! It wasn’t until recently I had the privilege to road test it and try it out. I LOVE what the company stand for – sugar will never be one of the top 3 ingredients and they say Sweetpea Pantry products are 100% natural, 100% honest and 100% fun. The products are full of all-natural and super-powered ingredients including chia, quinoa, flax, wholegrains and reduced unrefined sugars.

In the produce range are 5 baking mixes in the range including cookies, pancakes, flapjacks and pizza dough. All of them would make super gifts for busy parents and they even have a subscription idea. Ours arrived by special delivery from London and first up in our kitchen was the Playful Pizza Dough. The baking mix comes with all the dry ingredients which for the pizza are wholewheat flour, strong white flour, chia, flaxseed, yeast, oregano, salt and we only needed to add the wet ingredients – water and olive oil. It was SUPER EASY to make and, quite frankly, over and done with almost too quickly as I got complaints from my little helpers that there weren’t enough jobs to do!

I love pizza as it is seen as a ‘treat’ food or junk food by kids and big kids alike, but when we make it ourselves at home I (or should I say ‘we’!!) have control over the ingredients, the amount of sugar and salt in the base, sauce and toppings, and pizza acts as a fast vehicle to deliver a vast array of colourful vegetables into my children (and husband)!

Our favourite pizza toppings are:

• My all time favourite is something simple like homemade tomato sauce with roasted red peppers, fresh oregano, and hand torn fresh buffalo mozzarella (add on top towards the end) then once out of the oven add thinly sliced basil leaves and a handful of spicy rocket and finish with a drizzle of olive oil! Mwah.
• White pizza sauce base, topped with baby spinach (or frozen spinach leaves if you don’t have fresh on hand), caramelised onions, zucchini ribbons and chunks of feta. Fresh ingredients are my favourite!
• Grilled summer vegetable pizza brings back memories all year long of summers at the lake house. We indulge during those summer visits in boxes and boxes of super fresh vegetables like grilled fairytale eggplants, assorted peppers, zucchini and baby marrow and my favourite fridge staple for everything ‘summer’ – garlic slow roasted tomatoes made from the most amazing sungold cherry tomatoes. All of these things go amazingly well on pizza and not much more than a drizzle of olive oil and some thinly shredded basil leaves for the smell of summer once it comes out of the oven. If you put the basil on too early it turns brown during the cooking process, so try and leave it until just before the end of the cooking process or as the pizza is coming out of the oven.
• Prawn and avocado is such a good combination on bread or wraps – have you tried it on pizza? You can mix it up with a spicy tomato sauce or keep it mild to appreciate the delicate flavours of the seafood and rich avocado. Combine with shaved fennel bulb or grilled slices of fennel or mini florets of broccoli to cut through the rich seafood and avocado. I love a squeeze of fresh lemon and drizzle of olive oil on this one as it comes out of the oven.

For this kitchen experiment with Sweetpea Pantry we weren’t as prepared as I’d like to have been with the toppings and photography! It was a last minute grab and go dinner idea (which it’s perfect for by the way), so the toppings we used were whatever we had in the back of the fridge! Pizza a great way to use up some leftover ham/salami/roast chicken/burger mince patties or vegetables that will be better off covered with a bit of cheese. Wink wink!

The verdict – thumbs up! Only one bowl and one spoon to wash up. The mix was super quick to make – infact it took longer to eat it than mix it! I used the Weber BBQ with a pizza stone for the cooking, but as we were having a windy afternoon, the BBQ had trouble getting hot and staying hot. So the end result was a slightly hard thicker base, but I’d try this one again in a hot oven  and supervise the rolling a little more closely to see the difference. Or at the very least I wouldn’t hesitate adding some chia and flaxseeds to my ‘normal’ pizza base recipe next time. I’m inspired 🙂

For those heading back to the UK this summer – preorder a few packets and have them delivered ready to keep the little ones entertained on the rainy days, or as gifts for friends who have had you to stay or give Grandma an afternoon of baking pleasure with the little angels. Visit www.sweetpeapantry.co.uk for more info.

** If you live in Dubai and would be interested in seeing this product available here, then please register your interest by emailing heidi@kurthkitchen.com or contacting me via the Kurth Kitchen Facebook page **

Disclosure: We were sent the above products free of charge after I contacted Tanya, however all opinions are my own.