Pizza Braid

As I was flicking through Pinterest a while ago, I came across this idea of a pizza braid. I loved it instantly and knew I would have to try it soon, so I put it on my to-bake list. I finally decided to make them today and they were delicious!! It was incredibly simple and would be great to impress people at a dinner party or when entertaining guests since the presentation of the dish is something to be admired, and i'm sure it will be a hit taste-wise too - who doesn't like pizza after all!!

To start with I made the filling for the braid, this is what would traditionally be the topping for the pizza. I chose to make a chicken and mushroom filling for mine. At this point make sure to preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4/356°F

The next step is to prepare the pizza base. I just used a packet of pizza base mix, that I just needed to add water to to form the dough. Follow the directions given and prepare the dough as instructed on the packet. or if you know how you could make your own pizza dough! Once the dough was formed, I rolled it out into a rough rectangle shape, ready for the filling.

Transfer the dough onto a baking sheet, with GREASED baking paper. I stress the 'greased' part because the first pizza braid that I made the dough got stuck to the grease-proof paper and it was very problematic!! So for the second try I just put a bit of oil onto the sheet and spread it around - this sorted out the sticking issue and it was easy to remove from the paper after it was cooked as well.

On the rectangle of dough, using a pizza cutter cut medium sized strips, of equal size out of the sides of the rectangle. Make sure to leave a solid space in the centre for the filling to be placed and then on either side of this space cut out the strips. These will be used to create the 'braided' effect. 

Fill the whole centre strip that you left for the filling. To add a little more flavour I decided to add some jalapeños to the filling and of course, do not forget to add the cheese! No pizza dish would be complete without cheese. For my pizza braid I just used some cheddar cheese but you could just customise it and choose whatever cheese you wanted!

Now for the braiding part!! Just take a strip from one side and cross it over the filling. Next grab a piece from the opposite side and overlap it over the first piece, so that they form a cross. Continue crossing over alternate strips until you reach the end. For the ends of the braid, I just folded up the strips at the end and joined them with the dough at the top of the braid to ensure it was sealed at the ends and the filling wouldn't leak out whilst cooking.

Once the dough has been braided place it in the preheated oven for about 15-20 minutes, until the top has gone a little golden-brown and the dough has formed a hard crust.

Once I used up all the dough I needed for the braid, I realised I had some dough and filling leftover, so I decided to make these mini-pizza pies. I just cut small circles of the pizza dough and placed a circle into the bottom of a greased cupcake pan. I filled it with the chicken and mushroom mixture, jalapeños and cheese. Then I just place another circle of the dough on top of the filling and secured the edges, by pinching together both of the circles to seal the 'pies'. 

The presentation of this dish is something to be admired, so I would recommend serving it as it is. Just place the pizza braid onto a dish and serve it! Once everyone has admired the 'supposed' hard work it took to make the dish, you can cut it into pieces, by cutting horizontally and making rectangles of the pizza braid to serve it.

Ingredients:

An ingredients list is hard to make for this dish since you could make it with any filling you wanted! For my pizza braids (I made 2) I used:

4 pizza base mixes (2 for each pizza braid)

Roughly 4/5 chicken breasts

About 150g - 250g of mushrooms

Cheddar cheese - about 1 1/2 to 2 cups per braid, but this can be adjusted to taste.

Jalapeños 

This is a really rough list of the ingredients I used for my pizza braids, but you can create your own and add whatever filling you feel like! 

Keep it sweet!

Aneesa