Good Gobble Pizza

I have to say that by far the most exciting moment since we started blogging (and there have been many) was when we were sent a link to this post entitled 'Good Gobble Pizza' by Marcus - a fellow blogger from all the way down in Devon.

I first started following Marcus' blog Country Wood Smoke when I stumbled across it during one of my usual daydreams about how ace it would be to have a wood-fired pizza oven in my own back garden. Well, guess what - he does! He built it himself and has been so kind as to share with the world exactly how he did it alongside mouth-watering recipes for the food he cooks in it.

I love reading about all the creations on Country Wood Smoke but the ones that really get my heart racing are the pizza recipes. So imagine my delight to read Marcus' latest blog entry was a pizza he had made especially for us! What an amazing gift!

The pizza sounded delicious - and topped with ingredients I would have never in a million years thought to use - Samphire and Goat's cheese. Also loved the idea of putting a nice sprinkling of Semolina and Polenta onto the base to stop it sticking.

Bailey and I decided we would indulge in this pizza treat for our Valentine's Day dinner on Tuesday and it really was amazing. Bailey described it as "the best homemade pizza I have ever had" and said the base was "the best ever". We absolutely loved the combination of flavours and the crispy and chewy pizza base.

We started making the dough for the pizza base the night before Valentine's Day as per Marcus' instructions for his Best Overnight Sponge Bread. The first step was to stir together the flour, yeast and water right before bed then leaving overnight.

When I came down to look at the mix on Valentine's Morn, it had completely changed and was full of lovely little bubbles!

I then added the rest of the flour, salt and oil and got kneading. I loved the feel of the dough - so smooth and elasticky.

After having left the dough to proof twice, I was super alarmed to come back to the kitchen to find the dough was absolutely massive - popping out of my largest mixing bowl!

There was so much of it that I decided I would use half for the pizza bases then the other half for a nice little loaf of bread so we could try Marcus' recipe in both forms.

The loaf came out lovely with a delicious crust and doughy inside. I must admit this loaf did not last very long out of the oven and Bailey was a happy man.

Still, this didn't spoil our appetites for pizza as the bases were looking amazing. I commented to Bailey the dough was really easy to roll out into a great shape unlike with our usual recipe. A nice sprinkling of Semolina and we were ready to go.

We made up the tomato base as instructed by Marcus with some nice pesto and passata. I think this really added to the flavour of the pizza and I will definitely be using it again.

We topped the pizza with the Samphire and Goat's Cheese and I put a light sprinkling of normal cheese on too, just to fill in the gaps. For some reason I didn't get any olives but I reckon Bailey would have been secretly pleased about that! I will remember them next time though.

We whacked it into our Pizza Stone and put it in the oven at the highest temperature and cooked for 6 minutes and served on a wooden board to share (it was Valentine's Day after all).

It was absolutely delicious and I'm really glad we made two as even after the second pizza I thought it was so good I could have had another.

We are both so grateful to Marcus for sending us his excellent recipe, we loved every bite. We have also declared our old pizza base recipe to be obsolete - we will only be using Marcus' Overnight Sponge recipe from now on! Thankyou Marcus for such a fab gift - best Valentine's meal ever!