D.I.Y pizza kit from Well Kneaded – nearly as good as the real thing.

This might surprise some people, but I am not that keen on takeaways. The food has always stewed somewhat by the time you get it. Crispy duck is now wilted duck, pizzas are steamed as well as baked. You also either order too little and then must plan a strategic fridge raid for later in the evening or so much that you need to rent a forklift truck to get it to the kitchen.

I was intrigued then when one of my favourite local pizza parlour’s Well Kneaded on Garratt Lane launched their D.I.Y pizza kits. Shop bought pizzas are even worse than takeaways by a factor so large even NASA could not work it out. Most of time you’d be better off throwing the pizza away and eating the packaging.

Well Kneaded are offering do it yourself kits for 3 different types of pizza. Basic a sort of Margherita with English base cheeses, a veggie with asparagus and hazelnuts and finally a meaty with salami. I pimped my meaty kit by adding hot sauce and bath pig chorizo to add to my personal pig out.

I was assured that the kit was firstly idiot proof and secondly enough to feed two. Not being of a mind to test how idiot proof it was, I asked my flatmate the Queen of lockdown to prepare it for us. The only thing that needed prepping she said was to rest the sourdough base balls outside the fridge for about a couple of hours.

Once the dough had regained its elasticity, the Queen simply stretched out two bases with her fingers and then added the two cheeses and tomato sauce base. Then the hot sauce and meats.

We then placed the bases on foil on baking trays to bake. Fifteen minutes or so at 200 degrees centigrade and we had two lovely, aromatic, and delicious pizzas. The only fault was a slight stickiness when removing the pizzas from the foil, perhaps a little oil would fix that.

As with all food, the test is in the eating and I am glad to say that these passed with flying colours. The edge of the base was crispy but got softer towards the middle. I don’t know whether it was the cheese or hot sauce but the combination to me was reminiscent of a good quality puttanesca, just bursting with flavour. If the preparation was quick, the consumption was even quicker and before I knew it, I was staring bereft at an empty plate.

Though nothing for me can beat the experience of dining in, it is likely to be a while as of yet before we can do that. In the meantime, if you are a pizza lover sign up to Well Kneaded’s newsletter, buy yourself a pizza kit and consign cardboard pizza to the remaindered shelves where it belongs.

Well Kneaded

414 Garratt Ln, Earlsfield, London SW18 4HW

https://www.wellkneadedfood.com/ to sign up for newsletter