A healthy, quick and easy twist on pizza – or the tortilla pizza that I like to make – that children can get involved with making. There are lots of fun age-appropriate jobs they can help with: get them to choose the veg fillings, tear the mozzarella, grate cheddar and veg, practise their chopping skills, fill the cups and roll the tortillas out.

These are also nice cold (isn’t all pizza…) so are great for lunchboxes.

Makes 12

Ingredients

Tortillas
150g wholemeal flour
1 tablespoon butter, melted
½ teaspoon baking powder
75ml hot water

Filling
1 ball mozzarella, torn into chunks
A handful of grated cheddar
150ml tomato sauce – see below for basic recipe
Mixed vegetables: we chose broccoli, grated carrot and baby sweetcorn. You could use almost anything: sliced mushrooms, frozen peas or sweetcorn, grated courgette, sliced olives, grated beetroot, spinach (frozen or fresh)

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180C with a 12-hole muffin tray inside.

Prep all the pizza fillings: chop the veg small, grate or slice it as necessary. Pour boiling water over frozen peas or sweetcorn. Get your cheeses and tomato sauce into bowls with spoons.

Make the tortillas: combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the melted butter and water to make a soft but not sticky dough (you may not need all the water), bring together and then divide the dough into 12 fairly equal portions. Roll each into a ball, then flatten out a bit.

Roll each ball out into a circle large enough to line the muffin holes. I find they turn out a better shape if you quickly roll backwards and forwards a few times, then turn the tortilla a quarter turn and repeat (i.e. not how you’d usually roll out pastry). Don’t worry if they’re not perfectly round though, you can trim them later if you want. Make sure any tears or gaps are properly mended or your filling will spill from the cups.

Take the hot muffin tray out of the oven. Carefully line each hole with a tortilla – don’t worry about ragged edges at the top. Fill the cups with a layer of grated cheddar, then a tablespoon of tomato sauce, then vegetables, then finally torn mozzarella.

Bake for 10 – 15 minutes until the tortillas are crisp around the edges and the mozzarella is melted and a little browned. Remove from the oven and take them out of the muffin tray immediately to cool on a wire rack. You can trim the edges with scissors if you like – I chose to because I didn’t fill them quite enough (and because I was making them look prettier for this post…).

Two pizza tomato sauce recipes

1. Chop 1/2 an onion and crush a clove of garlic. Sweat off the onion until soft, then add the garlic for a minute. Tip in a carton of chopped tomatoes or passata, sprinkle in some dried thyme / oregano / mixed Italian herbs (or fresh thyme / oregano), crack in black pepper and bring to a simmer. Simmer until thick enough to stick to a spoon.
2. Toss together around 400g of cherry or small, halved tomatoes with olive oil, dried herbs or fresh thyme and/or oregano, and black pepper. Roast at 150C for an hour, or until soft and split. Whizz up in a food processor or with a hand blender into a chunky sauce. Tip into a saucepan and simmer until reduced enough to stick to a spoon.