Pumpkin & Ricotta Cheese Pizza

Haha.. Another recipe using Ricotta Cheese..... You bet I love this Homemade Ricotta Cheese so much. It's really easy to make and taste great with all kinds of combination. This Pumpkin & Ricotta Pizza really taste something different from those usual cheese pizza. The texture of the crumb cheese is still visible after baking and it's taste just as good with those pizza filling, especially the sweet pumpkin.


Other than the Pumpkin Ricotta Pizza, I also made the ham, pineapple and Mozzarella Hawaiian pizza. This pizza base was abit different from what I had made before. This one is more thinner and with a very crispy crust.

Ingredients For Pizza Base:(makes 4 small pizza)
1 Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
160ml(2/3 Cup) Warm Water
1 Teaspoon Of Sugar
270g(2 Cups) Plain Flour
Pinch Of Salt
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Methods:
1. Place the yeast, sugar and water in a bowl and set side until bubbles form.(about 5 - 10 minutes)
2. Add the flour, salt in a big mixing bowl, then slowly add in the yeast water and stir till water used up.
3. Next add in the olive oil and mix to form a dough and knead for about 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and elastic.
4. Place dough in a clean, oiled bowl, cover with cling wrap and allow to stand in a warm place for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Assemble:
Semolina For Dusting
1. Lay non-stick baking paper on the baking tray and dust evenly with some semolina(about half tablespoons).
2. Divide the pizza dough into 4 portion and roll out 2 – 3mm thick and place on the baking paper that dust with semolina.
3. Spread some base sauce and top with desire ingredients and bake in preheat 200 degree oven for about 15 minutes or till golden brown.

Notes:
I tried to use 200g Plain Flour and 70g Bread Flour instead of 270g plain flour from the original recipe.

Recipe from Donna Hay, Modern Classics 1

Assorted Ricotta Crepes

Crepe is a thin pancake, a meal made of wheat popular throughout Europe and elsewhere. The common ingredients include flour, eggs, milk, butter and a pinch of salt. Crepes are usually of two types: sweet crepe made with wheat flour, and savory galettes made with buckwheat flour.

So for dinner, I decided to make both savory and Sweet Crepe using the Ricotta Cheese that I made. For the savory type, I wrapped honey ham with some ricotta and serve with some cherry tomato and avocado slices over some Caesar Dressing. While for the sweet dessert crepes, I used the filling with the mixture of some lemon juice, lemon rind, icing sugar, blueberries and some ricotta. Then I serve it with some melted dark chocolate and icing sugar.



Ingredients For Crepe: (make 8)
1 Cup Plain Flour
2 Medium Eggs
Pinch Of Salt
1 1/2 Cup Buttermilk/Fresh Milk
1 Tablespoon Cooking Oil/Olive Oil

Methods:
1. Lightly whisk the egg in a mixing bowl, then slowly whisk in the buttermilk till combine.
2. Add the salt and slowly add in the flour and whisk till all the flour had used all and the mixture is smooth without any dry ingredients.
3. Add in the oil and stir well.
4. Or you can blend all the ingredients in a food processor till combined.
5. Chill for at least 1 hour or you can prepare up to 1 day ahead.
6. Preheat and grease the pan, then stir the batter a while and scoop about 1/3 cup each time and swirl to fry into a thin crepe.

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Can you "Guess What Is This Cloud Like" thing in the picture? I bet you can't right, you might think that is the cooked egg white or some over whipped cream. Actually this is my 1st Homemade Ricotta Cheese which is introduce by Tracy base of her research on some blog sites.

Ricotta is an Italian cheese made from the whey which results when making cheeses such as mozzarella or provolone. The name "ricotta" means "cooked again" in Italian, referring to the second processing of the liquid to produce the cheese. Ricotta is similar in texture to cottage cheese though considerably lighter and is a key ingredient in cheesecake, lasagna and many cannolis. It is often served mixed with sugar, cinnamon and occasionally chocolate shavings as a dessert in Italian household

For those who is interested in trying out, you might take some reference from these blogs Lex Culinaria blog, Fias Co Farm, Ricotta Making. For my case, after some simple conversion and calculation, I starts trying on using small amount of milk and I made two different batches of ricotta cheese by using buttermilk and lemon juice separately. The finally result from using lemon juice is much finer and smooth compare to the buttermilk.




Ingredients: (make about 125g ricotta cheese)
120ml Buttermilk/55ml Fresh Lemon Juice
480ml Fresh Whole Milk

Methods:
1. In a small milk saucepan, simmer the fresh whole milk over low heat until around 90 - 95 degree.(you need to have a themometer that reads up to 100 degrees or more, if not you have to estimate the timing when you saw a lot of steam rising and it's almost going to boil)
2. Slowly add in the buttermilk or lemon juice and give it a gentle stir.(do not over stir it or you will break up the large ricotta pieces)
3. You will see very tiny white particles floating in the whey.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and set it aside, covered to rest undisturbed for about 15 minutes.
5. Line a big container or mixing bowl with muslin/cheese cloth.
6. Slowly pour the whole whey mixture into the prepared bowl and drained until the no liquid left on the cloth.(the more milk you used, the longer it will take to drain)
7. When it has drained, place the ricotta in a clean contain and you can keep it in the fridge for up to one week.

Notes:
You can season the ricotta with either salt or salt depending what you wanted to used it as.

You can use it for pizza filling, crepes or making ricotta cheese cake or muffin.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Em.... After seeing Evan making all sorts of muffins, I also having this mood of making some with reyon. So this morning, we made this for our breakfast. These mini muffins include some cream cheese, blueberry jam as a stuffing inside. So you can taste some extra cheesy and it's moist in texture because of some extra jam fillings.

It's really very easy to prepare muffins, but for this cream cheese muffin you need to do abit more of the wash-up. This recipe stated below can make 12 mini size muffins.

Ingredients:
145g Self-Raising Flour, sifted
50g Caster Sugar
50g Butter, melted and cooled
85ml Fresh Milk
1 Egg, lightly whisked
1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
75g Fresh/Frozen Blueberries
30g Cream Cheese, cut into small cubes
Some Blueberry Jam

Methods:
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degree, grease mini muffin pan or use disposable muffin cups.
2. Combine flour and sugar in a bowl, make a well in the center.
3. Whisk butter, milk, egg and vanilla essence in a jar or bowl.
4. Pour butter mixture into flour mixture, add blueberries and gently fold until just combined.(Do not over-mixed and there should be no trace of any dried ingredients)
5. Half fill muffin holes with mixture, top with cream cheese, 1/2 teaspoon jam, cover with some batter about slightly more than 3/4 full.
6. Bake for about 20 minutes, remove from oven and let it rest on tray for 5 minutes.
7. Remove and serve warm.