Pizza Muffins

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Grease the muffin tray lightly with cooking spray.
3. In a medium sized bowl, combine the flour, yeast and salt together and mix well. Whisk in ½ cup warm water and knead until it forms a dough. Dust some flour on a flat clean surface and knead for another 5-10 minutes until it is sticky and soft. The consistency should be as such that the dough should be able to spring back when touched or poked.
4. Roll out the pizza dough until it is half an inch thick.
5. Take a 3 inch cookie cutter and cut 12 circles. Roll these circles again and place them at the bottom of the muffin tray.
6. Spread the pizza sauce on the pizza circles and also on the sides of the cup lining.
7. Sprinkle in the mozzarella cheese equally in all the cups.
8. Place a basil leaf on each of the muffin cup along with cherry tomato halves.
9. Bake for 20 minutes until the muffins rise and cheese melted.
10. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes.
11. Serve and enjoy!

Trivia

• Pizza is one of the most popular dishes in the world that every country has hundreds of restaurants serving pizzas.
• There have been many pizza variations and you can make it hundreds flavors.
• The original pizza is served only in Italy or authentic Italian restaurants. It is a thin crusted dough with minimal cheese, lots of vegetable and sauce with some meat. The Americanized version of pizza is not something Italians consider original pizza.
• An average American consumes 6000 slices of pizza in his/her entire life.
• The first pizzeria was Lombardi’s in New York in 1905.

New York has hundreds of pizzerias simply because there is a huge Italian American immigrant community there and so New York style pizza is famous the worked over.