BFD - June '11

This month's BFD was a homemade concoction inspired by several recipes and my own creativity (cough).  I had been looking for a recipe for a breakfast pizza. I don't know why, I was just in the mood for pizza; but, since it was time for BFD, I knew it had to be breakfasty. Canadian bacon and pineapple? Too regular-sounding. Hmm, what to do what to do. I came across a few that had sausage and apples as their ingredients. Perfect!

The Dough
This is actually a modified version of the recipe that came with my KitchenAid mixer. For this recipe, I added cinnamon sugar and used a mixture of white flour and whole wheat flour. If you want to use it for regular pizza, cut the sugar down to 1 Tablespoon and omit cinnamon.

1 Tbsp yeast
1 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour

Combine warm water with 1 tsp sugar. Add yeast and let stand for 5 minutes. Mix together flour, whole wheat flour, 1/4 sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add yeast mixture to flour mixture. Use dough hook on your stand mixer and mix for 8 minutes. Cover, let rise for one hour. Punch down dough and roll out onto your pizza pan.


The Sauce

Do you remember the Honey Walnut Cream Cheese Spread that I used back in November for BFD? Oh yeah, baby, this was the pizza sauce. I don't feel comfortable reposting this recipe, but you can follow the link. It's a very easy recipe. I did add an extra 2 Tbsp of water in order to thin it out and make it more spreadable. (I also omitted the walnuts because my kids don't like them.) Once you've rolled out your pizza dough, spread the cheese spread over it. Sprinkle with additional 1 Tbsp of cinnamon sugar if desired.

The Toppings
16oz ground sausage, preferably mild or a breakfast sausage
2 small apples, peeled and chopped + 2 tsp cinnamon sugar
2 Tbsp raisins
a handful of shredded coconut

Cook the sausage thoroughly. Set aside. Saute the apples and 2 tsp cinnamon sugar. I used a nonstick pan so I didn't need butter. Cook the apples for about 5 minutes until tender. Combine apples and sausage. For the record, I only used about half of the cooked sausage. Sprinkle apples, sausage, and raisins over the sauce. Top with a handful of shredded coconut. Bake at 425 for 15 - 20 minutes. I ended up having to reduce the temperature to 400. For some reason, the top oven seems to cook faster.

The Verdict
Seriously yummy! The only thing I would change is to add something crunchy like walnuts or pecans. Since my kids don't like nuts, I didn't add them. Next time, I will add them to one half of the pizza. The dough also came out thick and chewy. Maybe next time I'll try it with a thin crust. Go ahead and make your own breakfast pizza. Be creative and don't be afraid to experiment. I'll stop short of saying the possibilities are endless!