Week 37: Aloha Spirit

I burned my Hawaiian pizza today. Should’ve cooked it on aloha temperature.

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I love pineapple on pizza. It adds a tart sweetness that complements melted mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and jalapeños. To make a vegan pizza true to the ‘Hawaiian’ pizza name, I needed to find something to replace the traditional ham flavor. I found a recipe for bacon flavored coconut flakes and decided to adapt it to flaked almonds to add some protein to this meal.

Over the course of this year, my partner and I have tried at least fifty different pizza variations. Hawaiian is one of my favorites (and not just because I miss living on Maui. There is no actual connection to the islands. Hawaiian pizza was invented by a Greek immigrant to Ontario, Canada. You can read more about the story here.)

To make this pizza unique, I tried a new dough recipe from the book Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day. I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated by this book at first. The authors are highly accomplished bakers. I bought a $10 digital kitchen scale to ensure that my measurements are accurate and decided to give one of their recipes a try.

I made the Cornmeal and Olive Oil Dough that the authors initially created for deep-dish pizza. The authors generously share their recipe here. The deep-dish style looks yummy and we plan to try it soon. To use this dough as a regular, flat pizza dough, I needed to add a 1/2 cup of flour and knead it slightly.

Above you can see my preferred method of flattening the pizza disk. I put a ball between two pieces of parchment paper and roll it out with a wooden rolling pin. I’ve worked on my technique so that I can get the pizza very thin. For this pizza, I would recommend a thicker dough. So either don’t roll it out as thin or try the deep-dish style in the link above.

This week’s quote is appropriate because I ‘blind baked’ the pizza, meaning I baked it naked, with no toppings, for 3 minutes before pulling it back out of the oven to top it. For some pizzas, that is the way to go. This week, it wasn’t! Lesson learned. I rolled the crust too thin to blind bake it and the final result was burnt.

For this week’s pizza, I recommend a medium or thicker crust to hold all of the yummy toppings.

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Ingredients

• 1/2 can pineapple chunks, drained
• 1/2 green pepper, diced
• handful cherry tomatoes, halved and lightly salted
• handful jalapeño slices, patted dry
• handful shredded vegan mozzarella
• 1/4 medium red onion, sliced thin
• cinnamon
• salt
• red pepper flakes
• dough of choice
• sauce of choice- red sauce, light BBQ sauce, and tomato paste thinned with water and sprinkled with herbs all work well as a base sauce, so adjust to your taste

Optional-Guacamole

• avocado (optional, if I can add a perfectly ripe avocado, I always do!)
• splash lime juice and dash salt (optional for avocado/homemade guacamole)

Optional- smoky, bacon flavored almond flakes

• 1/2 cup flaked almonds
• 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
• 1 teaspoon maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon liquid smoke (this is what gives it a smokey, bacony flavor)
• 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
• pinch sea salt
• pinch black pepper

Instructions for almond flakes

1. Heat oven to 350°.
2. Mix all the liquids and spices in a bowl and whisk to combine. Add the almond flakes and toss to coat.
3. Use a slotted spoon to place flakes on a piece of parchment paper in a single layer.
4. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes so they don’t burn.

Note: Do this at least 30 min before you want to bake your pizza so that your oven can get up to 450° to properly crisp your pizza crust. You can make the almonds a few days in advance and store them in the fridge or freezer.

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Instructions

1. Crank your oven up to 450°.
2. Drain your pineapple slices, if using from a can. The juice is great in smoothies or can be frozen and used later. Place them on a paper towel to dry them out a bit.
3. Sprinkle a little cinnamon on your pineapple. This is an optional step, but I have found it’s a nice flavor enhancer for the pineapple.
4. Roll out your dough. Slather on some sauce. I used a mix of tomato paste and a vegan BBQ sauce that does not have a strong flavor. You can also use straight tomato paste thinned and add some spices, like oregano or dried basil. This pizza is best with a tomato enhanced base flavor.
5. To give my pizza a boost, I tossed the cherry tomatoes with olive oil and pan fried them for five minutes before layering them on top of the sauce. This is optional, but it does add a nice flavor boost.
6. Place the pineapple, diced green pepper, and jalapeños around your pizza evenly.
7. Top with cheese. Feel free to be generous here. Cheese is yummy!
8. Bake for 11-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your crust.
9. Allow to cool for 5 minutes then top with the flaked almonds and guacamole.
10. Slice, serve, and enjoy!

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