Looking to develop a fast, easy dessert pizza without having to inventory a lot of extra ingredients? Check out these viable options and choose the best approach for your pizzeria:
1. Open up your dough skin in the usual manner and brush on melted or soft spread butter. Then sprinkle on a mix of cinnamon and sugar (be generous). Bake to a light golden brown. Cut into serving pieces and drizzle with powdered sugar icing.
To make the powdered sugar icing: Put 2 pounds of powdered sugar in a bowl and slowly add warm water while stirring. Add just enough hot water to create a thick, pourable consistency for the icing, then add one tablespoon of salad oil and stir well. Immediately transfer the icing to plastic squeeze bottles for later use. Icing can be stored at room temperature until needed.
You can make interesting variations of this icing by adding 2 or 3 tablespoons of honey, maple syrup or dark chocolate syrup. Or how about adding two teaspoons of instant coffee dissolved in a tablespoon or so of hot water? You might also experiment with different colors and flavors, adding a little red food coloring and some strawberry or raspberry flavoring. These variations are all quick, easy and tasty.
2. This idea is little more complex, but still easy: Brush the dough skin with melted or soft spread butter, and again apply the cinnamon-sugar mixture, but now add some prepared fruit filling (available at supermarkets or bakery ingredient suppliers) to the top of the pizza just before baking. These fillings come in a multitude of flavors and, since they are prepackaged in a squeeze-type tube, they’re super-fast and easy to use. Apply a drizzle of the powdered sugar icing over the top of the pizza after baking, and it’s ready to serve by the pie or by the slice.
3. Do you want to get a little more elaborate? Buy a box of streusel, the crumb-like mixture that you see on the top of some fruit pies, especially Dutch apple pie. Sprinkle the streusel over the top of the dessert pizza and bake, then apply the powdered sugar icing, and you’re good to go!
4. Here’s one that you don’t see very often: Buy some ready-made, frozen pie dough, which comes in pucks that weigh about 7 ounces each. Thaw out overnight in the cooler, then flour liberally and sheet/roll out to about 1/8” thickness. Trim to desired size, brush with melted butter or soft spread butter, and sprinkle on the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until lightly browned and crispy. I’ve found these to be very popular in Latin America. They’re best served with a small side cup of the powdered sugar icing for dipping. Any scrap/trim pie dough can be easily formed back into balls (pucks) and re-sheeted or -rolled, so there is little or no waste of dough.
5. How about a “poor-boy’s cannoli”? These are pretty easy to make using ready-made pie dough. Just roll/sheet the dough thin and cut into rectangles about 5” by 3”. Apply some ricotta cheese across the length of the dough, about 1/3 of the way down from the top edge. Very lightly moisten the bottom edge with a little water, and roll the dough down over the ricotta cheese, making sure to orient the seam along the bottom of the roll. Brush the top of each roll with melted butter and dip into granulated sugar. Transfer to baking pans and bake until the rolls are golden brown. For a variation, incorporate ground pistachio nuts into the ricotta cheese.
As you can see, dessert pizzas can be pretty fast and easy to make using your existing thin-crust dough, without a lot of additional ingredients, or they can be a bit more complex, requiring special dough and ingredients. Still, the desserts shown here are pretty quick, easy to make and tasty, too.
