Teresa’s Dessert Pizza

Written By Teresa Greenway

Lately I have been thinking a lot about  some ways to enjoy dessert pizzas that you could get excited about and have your family and friends talking about too.

I thought maybe a cheesecake base with fresh fruit on top would be a satisfying, delicious ending to a pizza party, picnic or camp out. This pizza is great tasting while it’s still hot, cooled down or even cold from the fridge.  I experimented with different ways to bake the pizza and work the toppings to the best advantage of eye appeal and taste.

With the first pizza, I par-baked the crust (I always use a sourdough crust but you could, theoretically, use any favorite crust) and then spread the cheesecake topping on, sprinkled on the fruit (fresh blueberries), then returned the pizza to the oven to finish baking.

The pizza tasted great and looked good too. However the crust edge on a par-baked pizza tends to be thick because the par-baking will cause the dough to puff up in the middle and spread the dough outwards towards the edge. I like a bubbly edge to my pizza.

So for the second pizza I spread the uncooked dough with the cheesecake topping, sprinkled on the fresh fruit and baked the pizza for seven minutes at 550F degrees. The pizza had a nice bubbly edge a, really nice crust and tasted great. However, the fruit (the strawberries) looked a little “baked,” so the eye appeal suffered somewhat. Baking fresh fruit can cause it

to look watery. This problem could be solved by choosing fruit that looks good baked at a high temperature (like the blueberries) or fruits that are already prepared, like sliced dried fruit, drained sliced peaches which were packed in juice, prepared apple pie filling etc. The peaches and apples would taste great sprinkled with a touch of cinnamon. I also think that a dessert pizza with a raspberry filling, chopped nuts and a crumb topping would be nice. Or maybe chopped apples, nuts, and figs drizzled with honey would bake up well. I have also been thinking of a pear/pecan pizza with a cinnamon crumb topping. The ideas are apparently endless. I would like to hear some of your ideas… Instead of dessert, some of these ideas would work for a breakfast treat as well.

On the third pizza, I baked with only the cheesecake filling and placed the fresh fruit on top right after removing the pizza from the oven , while the filling was still hot. The eye appeal on this pizza was just right. However, the fruit liked rolling off of the sliced pizza. I think if you were using a prepared filling, like a cherry pie, apple pie, or glazed fruit filling, you wouldn’t have the problem of the fruit rolling off and have a really great looking pizza.  The cheesecake filling tends to get a bit browner if you do not watch the baking time closely with this option.

 

On my next dessert pizza, I think I will go with the second baking method, bake the pizza with the filling and fruit and use blueberries or a prepared fruit topping. That would be my choice mainly because I liked the crust with that option and I love blueberries.

Now I find myself wondering about a lemon meringue pizza….. ?

To find the complete recipe for Berry Cheesecake Dessert Pizza visit: http://www.northwestsourdough.com/discover/?p=2321

Enjoy!