Awesome homemade deep-dish pizza

Possibly the world's most awesome pizza.

And I have this man to thank. Warning: this is not something to make if you are on a January diet (or a diet at any other time really....). But it tastes amazing - in my opinion, just as good as a takeaway and a lot cheaper.

Ever since I saw on a blog how Pete made his own deep dish pizza, I've wanted to try it. So one weekend when my boyfriend was coming round I decided to treat him to this calorific creation. I made the pizza dough in my breadmaker, following the instructions that came with the machine. If you have a breadmaker you could do the same, or look online for a pizza dough recipe.

Here's my pizza dough ready to prove in a warm place. I actually made two batches of dough as I wasn't sure one would be enough and I was right.

When it is ready roll out half your dough and line a 9-inch springform cake tin. You need enough dough to be able to drape over the sides as shown - I was a little short on one side. (Not sure why it looks a funny colour, it must be the lighting in my kitchen).

And now you get to have fun with the filling - you can put in whatever you want! I started with some sliced cheese.

Then I added some Pepperdew red pepper and red onion, but only on one half of the pizza as my boyfriend doesn't like them. He actually asked for a margherita pizza but that would have been no fun!

I fried some pancetta and added that to the pizza.

Some grated cheese on top...

And some teaspoons of soft cheese e.g. Philadelphia

Just in case that wasn't enough, I added some chopped hot dogs, and some torn mozzarella

Roll out the other half of your pizza dough and place on top. Roll the edges that were overhanging the sides to make a raised crust.

Spread some passata over the top - your rolled edges stop it going over the sides - and sprinkle over some basil leaves.

And then more cheese, because there wasn't enough already... ;-)

Bake in the oven, I think for about 40 minutes but do keep an eye on it. The pizza rises up quite a lot - here I've just taken it out of the tin.

And here you can see inside!

Mmmmmm......

The pizza was delicious, but we found that the fillings which worked best were the chunky pieces like the hot dog - the pancetta was actually quite hard to find. As for the cheese, the sliced and grated cheese pretty much just melted into the base whereas the soft cheese, surprisingly, held its texture and gave a really nice flavour. If I made this again I probably wouldn't bother with the sliced cheese initially (though I would still add the grated cheddar), and I would add something with a bit more texture like some meatballs or maybe some chicken. Hmm, I might have to make this again!