With new friends in my daughter’s new school, it seems that there are lots of new playdate requests, so playdates are a big part of our social calendar. I have recently discovered the perfect activity (especially on cold wintery days indoors): a pizza-making playdate. It ticks all the boxes: happy, healthy, and fun. Plus, you feed the children in addition to keeping them entertained. Bonus!

Provide a station of various food options. Choose toppings that might slightly push them out of their normal comfort zones (and create more interesting pizzas). For instance, pre-cooked broccoli from the previous night’s dinner was surprisingly the most popular item.

Ingredients :

-Pizza Dough — this is a great recipe from Jamie Oliver for dough, or buy fresh or frozen balls of dough, or ask a local pizza restaurant to buy some dough!
-Flour (small handful)
-Pizza sauce — easy to buy or make
-Cheese — we used grated and fresh mozzarella balls
-Your choice of toppings!

Materials Needed : 

-Spoon
-Rolling Pins
-Tea Towels or Aprons
-Baking Sheet

Simply roll the dough on a clean and floured surface, and even try to do some dough ‘throwing’ in the air.

1. Then have them roll the dough as thin as you prefer but strong enough to handle an enthusiastic helping of toppings! Smiley olive faces recommended. 🙂
2. Next, cook the pizza until the dough is golden and brown, about 10-15 mins at 180 degrees celsius.
3. Slice up and serve up… simple.  They loved trading slices and sharing ‘their’ pizza with ‘their’ friend which was very cute. Such pride in their pizzas, and such a yummy reward.

So the only question I am left wondering is why it took so long for me to figure out this pizza play date trick? Successful, fun, and delicious! Finally, I hope you try a pizza play date — children of all ages are sure to love it.

Lara

x

ps Another fun after school activity that we love (with another kind of dough).