The best thing in my oven

Can you guess what it is? Is it a pizza? A flatbread?

I cannot resist watching things bake through the oven door.

The best thing to grace my oven for a long time is Ancient Greco-Roman Pizza with Feta, Honey, and Sesame Seeds from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day. Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François have done it again. They’ve won my heart with bread and filled my home with the smell of baking dough and hot cheese.

The authors handed out their latest book in person at the Foodbuzz blogger festival. I think receiving this treasure trove of baking inspiration was the highlight of the conference for me.

The Ancient Greco-Roman Pizza was the clear choice for my first go at a recipe from Artisan Pizza. I’m a history geek, what can I say. According to Hertzberg and François, this pizza is modeled after the oldest known recorded pizza recipe and uses ingredients the ancient Mediterranean civilizations would have had. The whole spelt dough is wonderful to work with and bakes into a dreamily crispy-chewy crust. I never would have thought to combine feta cheese, honey, and sesame seeds on a pizza but it tastes even better than it sounds, believe me.

This post will join in the World Wide Pizza Party on Twitter tomorrow. Join in by baking a pizza from Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day and tweeting about it using the hashtag #PizzaPartyIn5.