Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Cup O'Pizza


If you have never seen the movie The Jerk, then I hate you and no longer want to be your friend. Once you have seen it, I will forgive you and be your friend again.

Every time I watch this movie I want to eat pizza. Not just any pizza. But pizza in a cup, or Cup O'Pizza if you will. Once you see the movie you will understand why.

So my special lady friend, Tracy, found some little sort of little custard cups at the vintage/junk shop she worked at. She is a special and pretty lady.

I had told her about my dream to one day make these Cup O'Pizzas. She thought these cups would be perfect. Let me tell you...they were. They turned out exactly as I had hoped.

Here's what you do:

Make some pizza dough. I used the recipe out of The America's Test Kitchen cook book. It's pretty basic, easy, and delicious.

4 1/4 cup bread flour (plus extra for the counter)
2 1/4 tsp rapid-rise yeast (not the kind that you find in your panties, ladies)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 3/4 cup warm water

whisk 4 cups of flour, the yeast, and the salt together in a large bowl. Add the oil & water and stir with the rubber spatula until the dough comes together, much like my special sexy lady and I, and looks shaggy.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured counter and then knead the dough for 10 or 15 minutes.

Yeah, knead it. Wow, look at that handsome devil.

Then you ball it up, and put it into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover it and let it rise 1 or 2 hours.

Now what you do is take your awesome cups and pour a little pizza sauce at the bottom to lube them up. You can make your own sauce if you want but I needed something fast and dirty, like my sexy little sugarbutt of a lady, so I just used some Classico fancy marinara sauce. It worked pretty well.

Then you rip off a little piece of dough and drop it into the cup. Then you pour more sauce around it, then some mozzarella, and whatever toppings you want. I used pepperoni and pineapple.

Put them in the oven at 375 degrees for about 11 minutes.

Look at them, they are beautiful. Much like my special lady.

With the dough sitting in the sauce, it ends up being kind of like a dumpling. So when you eat them they are still chewy and doughy, but still cooked all the way through.

They are so good and tasty.

Baby approves.



They turned out pretty much exactly as I had envisioned. I was very happy.