I think it took me less time to make the pizza than it did to type that title for this post.
Moving along with my self-imposed blueberry theme, today's offering is more an idea or suggestion and not so much a recipe.
I made pizzas the other night for our dinner, and in addition to the usual make-your-own pizzas the kids make (Julia - tomato sauce, mushrooms, cheese. Alex - tomato sauce, pepperoni, cheese.) I like to try out new ingredient combinations, depending on what we've got on hand.
I also was thinking about a comment I got from Jen R. on this post about herb-crusted pizza dough. She asked if it would be possible to substitute whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour in the recipe. I told her I've never replaced ALL of the white flour with whole wheat, but I've maybe exchanged a portion of white for wheat. So with this batch (or double-batch, really), I used half whole wheat and half all-purpose.
(For the whole how-to, you can jump over to this post, which has the recipe I use 99% of the time, and just change the flour to half WW/half AP.)
Here are my little balls of dough, bathing in olive oil. They went together just fine, and they rose with the same vigor and volume that the 100% AP flour versions have done.
So as far as that goes, I'm happy with the half and half mixture. The resulting crust was just as crispy in the thin spots and chewy in the thicker spots as always, and the flavor - predictably - was more wheaty, more hearty, even a bit sweeter, than just AP flour.
So that's the dough part.
As far as this particular pizza topping combination goes...
Well, I'd made a big batch of goat cheese not long ago, so I figured some of that on a couple of the pizzas would be nice. And I thought the tang of the goat cheese would go nicely with the little intense sweetness of the wild blueberries we picked last week.
I also remembered a pizza we'd made years ago that had blue cheese, caramelized onions and walnuts, which we both liked very much, so I decided to include the caramelized onions (which would go nicely on just about anything, frankly) and some nuts. No walnuts (that I could find) here, so I used sliced almonds, which I sauteed in a little butter first.
And here's the pizza before it went in the oven:
And here's the pizza after I baked it. (For about 20 minutes in a 425 F degree oven.)
And the verdict? It was good! I liked all the contrasts - tartness and sweetness, softness and crunch. Bill liked it too. We didn't offer any to the kids - they'd already stuffed themselves on their own pizzas anyway, and Alex would have seen the onions and collapsed on the floor in horror. (Okay, not that bad, but he's not a fan of onions if he can see them in or on his food.)
I'd make this one again, but I think I'd stick with these tiny berries rather than the larger blueberries, which might release too much water during the baking and make the pizza a little messy-looking. That's just my guess.
So that's the blueberry entry for today! What do you think?
What do I think? I think I want to move next door to you, if I can't taste it, at least I could smell it on the breeze. You are so creative.
Posted by: jomamma | July 27, 2009 at 09:00 AM
That looks amazing! I have been wanting to start making both my own pizza dough and goat cheese (imagine that?) and this just put me over into that "must do now!" stage...
Love the idea of blueberries on pizza!
Posted by: Charli | July 27, 2009 at 04:18 PM
Great original recipe!!! By the way...typically you can put some or all real unprocessed whole wheat into a recipe and make it work. Allowing your wheat to soak up water, and likely increasing the amount of water and/or moisture in the recipe may be needed. Just one hint. The other and major hint is the type of flour that you use. You can use wheat berries from a company like www.doctorgrandmas.com or you can contact them directly do purchase milled flour. Oh...the point is the mill. It must be milled properly so that it's not ultra fine like confectioners sugar, but fine so that your finished product won't be too nutty. BTW....I suggest dr. grandma's stuff because they have the best zero cal sweetener that I love and they don't sell garbage wheat, but only the best. Thanks for the great post!
Posted by: troy | July 27, 2009 at 06:31 PM
This recipe sounds amazing. I use all whole wheat, and sometimes wheat berries (if I can find them locally) and soon it definitely becomes easier to do. Blueberries on pizza is inspired, and since I still have more pounds of them than I can think what to do with, this just might be dinner tonight :-)
Posted by: Mangochild | July 28, 2009 at 08:03 AM
I'm a big fan of the blueberry/goat cheese combination on pizza as well. I have not tried the caramelized onions, but I like to add in a little coarse chopped cilantro and toss the blueberries in (just a little) bit of wildflower honey. Looks great!
Posted by: John | August 16, 2009 at 02:12 PM
I was looking for a recipe with blueberries and caramelized leeks and found this! Going to try it out. Hopefully it comes out looking as delicious as yours.
Posted by: Paulette | July 17, 2010 at 05:08 PM