Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Perfect Pizza Puffs

 My Pictures have gone missing!!  I'm working on retaking pictures for this post- thanks for your patience.  ~Ma Bacon

Every have one of those days? Where SOMETHING sounds good, but you have no clue what. Last night before Mr. Bacon headed off to work he let was trying to find something to take for a midnight snack. Yes it was the night shift again. He couldn't find anything in the cupboards, nothing in the fridge or freezer either. So I asked what sounded good to him. And what does he say, pizza rolls. Yes those little pillow like things with the goo inside that is suppose to be pizza. Ok can you tell I don't care for them much! I wasn't about to run out to the store and buy some, especially with the cost of gas, and the price of processed convenience food! I had once come across a recipe for pizza bites, I tried to find it but I couldn't so I just decided to wing it, at 8:30 at night! But let me tell you, they were worth it!

I started out with my basic pizza crust from Here. Mix just as it states, and let it rise the 10 minutes you need to. That is why I LOVE that crust recipe, it takes 15 minutes tops to make pizza crust unlike the hour or more most need to rise. While the yeast was proofing and dough rising I decided to whip up a batch of homemade granola bars for the kids snack today too. Yes, they are so easy to make, I did it in under 15 minutes!


Once the dough is ready, it's time to get to work. First go and preheat your oven to 400*. Now these do take a bit more time than say rolling out a big pizza, but it didn't take me longer than 20min to get them all wrapped up and that was with putting Bacon Jr. back to bed once!

Pinch off a chunk of dough and roll it into a ball about 1" in diameter. I compared it to some pepperoni so you can see how big it is. You don't need a ton. Next take a very small amount of flour - no more than 1/4 cup and put it on your work surface, no need to spread it out yet. Roll your dough ball lightly in it. This will hopefully help keep it from sticking to the surface when you roll it out. You can always add more flour to the dough if you need it to not stick, but the more flour you use, the harder dough you'll get so remember just a little!



Next roll out the dough. No need for perfect circles or anything. You can roll it out by hand or with one of these handy pizza rollers. This one is from pampered chef but you can find several similar to it on amazon, and perhaps in stores too, I haven't looked. I LOVE this roller, it makes the top 10 handy gadgets I have around my kitchen easily. I was happy Grandma Bacon just happened to have one that she wasn't using and was willing to part with.

Now to the toppings... I went basic toppings and not too many because you have to remember you need to fold these up. So Sauce, pepperoni & cheese. I used a yummy 3 cheese blend of mozzarella, provolone & cheddar! I rolled out several and made them up to save time. After the first one I made and took a picture of, I decided the sauce stayed put better in the roll up stage if I put the cheese down first and sauce on top of it.


Next to fold them up. I just started grabbing at the edges and bringing them up to the center. There really is no good trick with doing this. Yes some of the toppings might try to slide out. Mine sure did, I just poked at them until they went back inside! Keep pinching until all the dough is folded up and it forms a little pouch. Place it pinched side down on a well greased cookie sheet or on a pizza stone.


I was able to make 22 of these little cuties! Here they are all ready for the oven.


Bake them in 400* oven for 10-12 minutes and tops are golden brown.

While they are baking I melted 2 tbsp butter and added 1 tsp Italian garlic bread seasoning to it. We love this seasoning. It's from tastefully simple and really yummy, but kinda expensive and only offered during the winter season. We use it all the time when we make garlic bread. I have also found I like Mrs. Dash garlic & herb seasoning too and tastes similar in garlic butter. It's also cheaper and easier to find!



Once the pizza puffs come out of the oven, brush the tops with the melted butter. Yes some of the insides sometimes ooze out of them (just like the store bought one's!) They still tasted delicious!


I let them cool for a few minutes and then grated some fresh Parmesan cheese over the tops of them! If you do it too soon and they are too warm, the cheese just melts. Still tastes good though!
Next, pop some of these on a plate and ENJOY! Mr. Bacon was so surprised when he stopped home for snack time to find these yummy treats waiting for him. He happily dug in and approved them right away!


6 comments:

  1. the pizza puffs sound great! bookmarking the recipe :)

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  2. I'd love to see pics, but they're not showing up for me. These sound great!

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  3. I'm sorry, somehow the computer ate my pictures :( I am working on replacing them when I can.

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  4. I would love to see pictures. I am really enjoying your site.

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