Today I have no inspiring thoughts. No lessons learned. I have only food. Pretzel crust pizza, to be exact. It is our family’s celebration pizza. No, it’s not healthy AT ALL. But it’s fun, and sometimes we just want to have fun. I blame Little Caesar’s. They introduced pretzel crust pizza as a limited time only product. And when it was gone we missed it. So, we started experimenting with our own homemade version, and now my family would rather have mine than Little Caesar’s, even when they bring it back. So, today I thought I’d share that fun with you via the recipe.
Time: Approximately an hour to an hour and a half, start to finish. May take a little longer if you only have one pizza pan.
Yield: Two 12-15 inch pizzas.
INGREDIENTS:
Crust:
2 1/4 cups lukewarm water (I usually use the electric kettle and heat to around 104, but warm to the touch is fine)
3 1/8 tsp active dry or instant yeast (roughly 1 1/2 packages)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
5-6 1/2 cups flour (we’ve used all-purpose, bread, or pizza flour for varied textures)
1 large egg, beaten with a tsp of water
pretzel salt or course sea salt
corn meal
Topping:
1 can Frito Mild Cheddar Cheese Dip (9 oz)
pepperonis
shredded cheddar cheese (we like sharp cheddar)
Optional: 8-9 mozarella sticks, if you’d like a stuffed crust
DIRECTIONS:
(Note: I like to use my stand mixer for this, so that will be what the instructions are based on, but I’ll add in mixing notes along the way to help differentiate between hand and stand mixing. If you have a hand mixer with a dough hook, lean toward the stand mixer instructions.)
- Preheat oven to 425°. If you have a quick-preheating oven, you can wait on this until you’re ready to knead the dough.
- Dissolve yeast in warm water and stir with a wooden or plastic spoon until fairly well mixed. It’s okay if there are still yeast lumps. I stir for about a minute.
- Add salt and sugar and stir until mostly dissolved.
- Slowly add 5 cups of flour, one cup at a time on speed 1-2 until the dough is thick. Continue adding flour until the dough fully separates from the mixing bowl and stays pulled away for 30-60 seconds of mixing. If hand mixing, keep adding flour until the dough isn’t sticky. When you poke the dough with your finger and it bounces back, it’s ready to knead.
- Knead for about 3 minutes (speed 2 on mixer or by hand), then shape into a ball.
- Cut the ball into two even pieces and reshape each piece into its own ball. (Keep in mind that when you are shaping balls of dough, you need to do it in as few motions as possible so as to avoid additional kneading motions. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just a good starting point for rolling out the dough.)
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a 15-17 inch circle – or just slightly larger than your pizza pan.
- Lightly sprinkle your pizza pan with corn meal to reduce sticking, then place the dough on the pizza pan. The edges of the dough will hang off.
- OPTIONAL: If you want stuffed crust, now is the time to place your mozarella sticks around the edge of the pan.
- Fold the edges of the crust over as evenly as possible to create a nice pretzel ring around the edge. You may want to moisten the crust a little before folding it, just to help it seal as you press down, especially for stuffed crust.
- Using a fork or a pizza crust docker (so much fun!), poke holes across the crust for even baking.
- Brush egg wash over the entire perforated portion of the crust. Next, brush the egg wash across the pretzel edges, about a quarter of the edge at a time. Sprinkle the moistened edge with the pretzel salt. Repeat until the entire edge is moistened and salted.
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- While the first crust is baking, repeat steps 7-11 with your second crust if you have a second pizza pan.
- Remove crust from oven and use a spatula to make sure it is completely loosened from the pan. This is easier to do before the pizza is topped.
- Place the second crust in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. (If you only have one pizza pan but you have a pizza peel, you can remove the first crust from the pan, place it on the peel for topping, prep the second crust and get it in the oven, then top the first pizza while the second one is baking.)
- Spread half a can of cheese dip over the baked crust. Top generously with pepperonis, then sprinkle the shredded cheddar on top of that.
- Once the second crust is done baking, set the oven to broil and place the first topped pizza in the oven. Broil for 3-5 minutes, depending on preferred crispiness. You can put the pizza directly on the oven rack at this point, if desired.
- While that pizza is under the broiler, top the second pizza, then broil 3-5 minutes.
- Place pizza on a cutting mat and let it rest for a couple of minutes. Then slice and enjoy!
Not Quite Ordinary 