Heart-(Or Moose-)Shaped Pizza and Calzones

I'm sharing two fantastic recipes and my fun idea for doing something with my kids, but all three are definitely worth trying! My little guys absolutely loved making these pizzas and my three-year-old was surprisingly good at it. Not only that, but these little pizzas and calzones are adorable and delicious. They would be perfect for a slumber party dinner or just a dinner with friends or family because everyone loves pizza and kids love making things their own!

First, let's start with the pizza dough because this would be the first thing I would do in the process. I have a Cuisinart CBK-100 2-Pound Programmable Breadmaker, which is absolutely fantastic and I got this recipe from the booklet that came with it. The recipe is at the end of the post, but I think what makes it great is the whole wheat flour that's added in. I think this gives it a little more malleability when you're rolling it out, which is extra-excellent for this recipe since we're rolling out the dough like cookie dough. This particular recipe takes an hour and a half to make the dough, so prepare ahead of time. I always set an alarm in my phone to get the ingredients in the breadmaker in time.

Next, I make the sauce. I got this recipe from thecomfortofcooking.com and I absolutely love it! It is so easy. It literally takes me about five minutes to make (in a blender!) and then I freeze what I don't use in an ice cube tray. Once the sauce cubes are frozen, I put four or five of them in a plastic bag and store them in the freezer for the next time I want to make pizza. It's brilliant and so tasty!

Once the dough is ready, you just roll it out on your counter like you would cookie dough. This will take some muscle because pizza dough is not quite as easy to manipulate as cookie dough. But stick with it. It will get there. Roll it out as thin as you can without making it easily rip-able.

 

Then, go to town with the cookie cutters. Large shapes like hearts or pumpkins work the best. Most of our pizzas were heart-shaped or pumpkin-shaped, but we threw in a moose just for fun too!

Now get out your ingredients and go to town! I LOVE bacon and olives on my pizza. So, I usually cook up some bacon until it's nice and crispy, chop it up and put it on top of my delicious cheese. Then I chop up some olives and throw them on top too. My kids don't like pepperoni, so this is a great alternative and I think it's even tastier than pepperoni!

And... I gave Emmett the leftover dough to play with. He mostly just poked it. You can roll the dough out probably two-three times, but you might need to add some water the second and third time to get it to cooperate.

It turns out that putting pizza sauce on a moose is a little morbid, but luckily, that was lost on Lincoln and I kept my being grossed out a little to myself. :)

Cookie Cutter Mini Pizzas and Calzones

Step 1: Breadmaker Pizza Dough (takes 1.5 hours)

Ingredients

1 cup water, room temperature
3/4 teaspoon honey
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 2/3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole wheat flour (if you don't have wheat flour, just do bread flour for all of it, but I recommend wheat if you can)
1 3/4 teaspoons yeast, active dry, instant, or bread machine

Directions

1. Place ingredients, in the order listed, in the breadmaker with kneading paddle and put on the dough setting. Press Start!
2. When the dough is ready, roll it out with a rolling pin until it is as thin as you can get it without it ripping too easily.
3. Use cookie cutters (large shapes work best, like hearts or pumpkins) and cut out shapes for your mini pizzas.
4. Lay out on greased or corn-mealed cookie sheets. You can also use parchment paper, like I did.

Step 2: Pizza Sauce

Ingredients 

1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar

Directions

1. Blend all ingredients together. Set aside 1-2 cups for the mini pizzas and put the rest in an ice cube tray.
2. Once the cubes are frozen, put four or five in a plastic bag and store in the freezer for the next time you need pizza sauce!

Step 3: Making the Pizza and Calzones!

Ingredients

Cut out pizza dough
1-2 cups pizza sauce
2-3 cups mozzarella cheese
1/4 lb. cooked and chopped bacon
1 (15 oz) can chopped green and/or black olives
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions

1. Spread your sauce and place your toppings for your pizzas.
2. For calzones, put less sauce and toppings on the cut-out. Spread the top piece of dough out with your fingers so that's it's slightly larger than the bottom piece and can fit around the toppings. Place it on top of the bottom piece and press the edges. Make sure you press well (use a fork if you need to) because the dough wills separate as it cooks and you don't want everything falling out the sides when you try to eat it.
3. Bake at 425 degrees F for 5-15 minutes. I realize that's a big time difference, but I would start watching your pizzas at 5 minutes because the varying sizes will take different amounts of time to cook.
4. While the pizzas and calzones are cooking, melt the butter and stir in the garlic salt. When the calzones are done, spread the butter mixture on the top. Let cool for about 5 minutes and enjoy!