Feeding Friendship: Pizza Pizza!

This time around, Veronica chose pizza as our cooking challenge. I was so happy, since pizza is one of the things I make when I'm too tired to deal with making something complicated. Her reference to dessert pizza gave me a flashback to birthday parties at Pizza Hut in the late '80s where the buffet always had a dessert pizza topped with fruit. So, I decided to do one of each- savory and dessert pizzas this time around.

My go-to easy pizza secret is using Indian naan flat bread as the crust. Wegman's makes good naan, and I like using the roasted garlic variety for pizzas. The naan is about as big as your head, so it makes a good personal sized pizza that can be customized to your taste. It's extremely simple to make, and you can make any or all elements from scratch- or not. First, pre-heat your oven to 350. Then I slap the naan on a baking sheet and cover it with pizza sauce (Wegman's makes "to go" sauce that isn't canned, so I use that) and shredded mozzarella. Slices of a traditional mozzarella work well too.

most of my ingredients for semi-homemade weeknight pizza

ready for toppings!

Now the toppings are up to you. We like pepperoni, each with a different secondary topping. We both like pesto and chicken with toasted pine nuts, which also goes well on naan. 

Olives for me, onions for George

Once you're done topping and the oven is hot, pop in your pizzas for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted. I like to turn off the oven and use the broiler for just 2-3 minutes on low to crisp up the pepperoni. This requires constant supervision! Do NOT turn on the broiler and then go feed the cat or clean something or otherwise wander off, because your delicious pizza will scorch. Keep an eye on it and take it out before it gets too brown. 

ready! 

mmm! nom nom naan

For my dessert pizza I thought about getting very fancy and making a crust out of cinnamon roll dough and topping it with cherries and sugar glaze to sort of re-create the Pizza Hut experience I remember. That involved a lot of guesswork, though, so I got inspired when I saw this Pillsbury recipe on Pinterest for a spring "pizza" made out of a big cookie. I didn't make this exact thing due to my pathological need to make baked goods from scratch (as opposed to dinner, apparently), but I cribbed the idea. I halved this recipe for sugar cookie bars from A Little Bit Crunchy A Little Bit Rock 'n Roll and put the dough in a pizza pan instead of rectangular baking pan (this is not a Little Caeser's cookie pizza). 

thick sugar cookie dough

dough spread into the pizza pan

Around 10 minutes later I pulled the cookie pizza out of the oven, just as the edges were beginning to brown. It looks remarkably similar on film, but was in fact now a real cookie...just a really big one. 

cooked, I swear

As the pizza cooked, I made the vanilla frosting called for in the bar recipe. It was ready just about the time the cookie was done, but I had to wait a while to frost it so the hot cookie wouldn't melt the frosting. You can obviously use pre-made frosting too, but after looking at the ingredient list on that stuff, you may not want to. From this point you can do tons of cute things for toppings from sprinkles to spring (or any holiday) M&Ms, to crushed Cadbury candy eggs, etc etc. I just had plain chocolate chips around, so that's what I used, but the holiday candies would be very cute too. I don't think I could bring myself to do jelly beans, but whatever floats your boat. Here's the finished product:

chocolate chip "pizza"

close-up!

Try a slice! It's delish!

All in all, my little pizza experiment worked pretty well. The half recipe of both dough and frosting filled up the pan and made a soft, buttery cookie crust for the pizza. The sky is the limit on dessert pizza, just like the real thing! 

Life-Changing Cake

Hello, readers. I wasn't going to blog this recipe. I got a recipe from a co-worker who said his wife had the best cake recipe ever. His family kindly gave me a wee recipe book at Christmas featuring this dessert. I hadn't made til about a week ago when same said coworker pestered me into making it for our staff meeting. All I can say is, "Whoa." The source of this recipe was never clear, and I wasn't sure if his wife was an evil genius or a resourceful Internet user. He said I shouldn't give it away to just anyone. However, I found what I think is the original source of this recipe, the well-known and somewhat fancy Momofuku Milk Bar in New York City. I tracked this recipe across the blogosphere in a couple of iterations from Wee Eats and Some Kitchen Stories.  However, I'm going to make a bold claim. These people are giving you bad advice and my version is BETTER. Ha, there, I've said it! Their recipe is for "bars" and you'll notice if you click the above link that the bars are distinctly darker on the bottom. Jake's wife took the recipe firmly into the cake realm, which I respect and appreciate, and I have kicked it up a notch using the easy yellow cake recipe from Mama J at A Little Bit Crunchy a Little Bit Rock 'n Roll (though she's doesn't give the amount of milk you should use) and by using more vanilla. Besides, who wants a 1" square bar unless you're at a party? That's just enough dessert to make this kid angry. 


So, here we go. I give you the recipe for what I'm going to christen Vanilla Gooey Butter Cake. Here's what you'll need to change life as you know it today:


for the cake

• 2 1/2 cups cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
• 3 eggs
• 1 Tbl vanilla
• 3/4 - 1 cup milk (2% or whole) 

for the gooey topping layer:

     8 oz cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)

     2 eggs (or 1/2 cup egg beaters) 

     4 cups confectioners sugar 

     1 tsp vanilla extract

Now preheat your oven to 350 F. Grease or Pam the bottom only of a 9x13 or 9.5 x 11 inch pan and set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of your mixer. I used a fine-mesh sieve here instead of my hand-numbing sifter, so suit yourself. Add the sugar and butter and mix on low for about 1-2 minutes, until the mixture looks like relatively fine sand. 

In a large measuring cup, combine the eggs, milk, and vanilla. If you are using egg substitute like egg beaters, use 3/4 cup of milk, but if you're using actual eggs, kick the milk up to 1 cup. Beat lightly with a fork in the cup. 

With the mixer on low, pour about a cup of the egg mixture into the flour mixture. Turn the speed up to medium and beat for about a minute. Add the remaining mixture and beat on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides as needed with a spatula. Pour your cake batter into your greased pan and set aside. 

Now for the gooey topping. Mix your cream cheese, eggs, and vanilla in a mixer or using an electric hand mixer until the lumps mostly subside. Add in your sugar slowly, mixing to incorporate each addition. When all sugar is incorporated and mixture is a consistent texture, pour over your cake batter in the pan. 

Bake for ~40 minutes, depending upon your oven and settings, until the top layer is ever so slightly brown and the sugar has formed a crisp layer. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out without cake batter when it's done, but will have goo on it from the topping. Like this: 

At this point your whole house will smell like vanilla heaven and you'll want to put your face in the cake, but it needs to be allowed to cool. Cool for a minimum of half an hour on your stovetop, or your goo will do this:

I was in a rush here to take some to a friend, so I cut it prematurely. However, these clowns on the Internet are telling you to put this cake in the freezer to make it easier to cut. For the love of all that is holy, do NOT do that! This cake will induce a foodgasm when eaten while still slightly warm, and unless you are foolishly cutting it into tiny pieces, there is no need to freeze! I cut it into roughly brownie-sized portions. This cake is a combination of yellow cake and a topping that has the best attributes of creamy frosting and crunchy creme brûlée topping. It is the kind of cake you think about all day. It is the kind of cake that lets you control others like puppets. Proceed with caution...and you can thank me later. 

This is the part where I normally put up a pretty photo of a piece on a plate, but this cake tends to disappear too fast, so you'll have to be content with another pan shot until I make it again.