This pizza bread is so great! It’s super easy to make and perfect for parties because it rips apart in single servings kinda like monkey bread! I usually just go to my local bakery and buy some frozen pizza dough, but I’ve included a pizza dough recipe incase you want to make this baby from scratch.
Ingredients:
-
- Pizza Dough:
- 2 1/4 teaspoon (1 package) instant dry active yeast
- 1 cup warm water (not hot!)
- 1/2 tablespoon sugar
- 3 cups bread flour (this will vary, but start with this amount)
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
-
- For the Pizza Bread:
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1/2 stick of butter
- Pepperoni slices
- Cubed Mozzarella
- Optional italian spices
Preparation for Pizza Dough:
This takes about 2 hours and fridge time, so prepare yourself.
Add the water, yeast, sugar, and a 1/2 cup of the flour into a mixing bowl. Stir well and let sit for 20 minutes. It will get bubbly.
Add olive oil, salt, and 2 cups of the flour, and mix with a spoon (you’ll find a wooden spoon sticks less) until it’s together enough to turn out on to a lightly floured work surface to knead.
Knead for about 10 minutes, while adding more flour a little at a time, to produce a soft, elastic and slightly sticky dough. Do not add too much flour, just enough to keep it from sticking to the work surface as you knead.
Form the dough into a ball and place in a large oiled bowl. Drizzle a few drops of oil and coat the top of dough to prevent the surface from becoming dry.
Cover with something (I place a cookie sheet on top but you can use a clean towel) and place in a warm spot for 2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size.
Punch down the dough and divide into 2 balls and place in large zip lock plastic bags and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to use, remove from fridge, and let the dough come up to room temperature before using.
Preparation for Pizza Bread:
First things first, choose whichever oven-safe dish/pan you’d like to use. I prefer to use a silicon bunt pan because it has a cute shape and some height to it, which when I bake the bread, creates a nice surface area to make nice crust for the bread.
Get a microwave-safe bowl and use a micro-planer on the peeled garlic cloves. This gets the garlic cloves insanely tiny and turns them into basically a garlic paste.
(If you’d like to add some italian seasonings such as crushed up basil or oregano, add it in now.)
Add half a stick of butter to the garlic paste and microwave until butter is melted. You don’t have to keep it in there for a whole minute, keep an eye on it. If you’ve over microwaved, your garlic will be greenish in color and taste pretty rancid.
Coat the dish you choose to work with with the hot garlic butter, don’t use all of it.
Now take a quarter sized ball of dough and flatten it out with your thumb into the palm of your other hand. Make it flat enough without making it too thin.
Place one slice of pepperoni on top of the flat dough, it should be slightly small than the dough.
Place on cube of mozzarella on top of the pepperoni slice.
Now close the pizza dough around your pepperoni and mozzarella so the dough in completely consumes them.
Place dough ball in your dish and repeat until an entire base row is in there. Make sure they are in tight enough so there is no space between each ball, but loose enough not to break them apart.
Now dab some of your garlic butter on top of this first row.
You are ready to make your next row! Using garlic butter between each row, sparingly, because if you use too much the dough balls won’t bake together at all. The butter is for flavoring and so the balls are easier to separate.
If you have left over butter when you come to the top of your dish, use it up on this top row, this will create a very firm base and shiny lovely pizza crust!
Now cover your dish (I usually use a cookie sheet) and let sit for 30 minutes. This rests the dough that you just had your hands all over and makes it fluffy again.
Heat your oven to 400 degrees and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top is light brown.
Once you remove it from the oven, let it sit for 10 minutes before flipping it over onto a serving dish.
Notes:
- I make my own dipping marinara sauce, by using this easy recipe and pulsing it with a food processor (handheld ones are awesome) until it’s pretty smooth.