Caramelized Onion and Maple Bacon Pizza

I don’t know what I have been loving more lately. Could it be the smell and taste of caramelized onions, or the process of making homemade bacon? Whatever the answer is to that question remains a mystery in my house, but I can tell you that I simply love caramelized onions, and bacon.  I did not know how many recipes I’ve created using caramelized onions, but there are quite a few, and some of my favorites being these twice baked potatoes and French onion soup. But it was not long ago when I was looking at a sealed package of my homemade maple and black pepper cured bacon and a bowl of rising pizza dough, where I came up with this recipe.

Ingredients: [Print this recipe]

• 1 prepared pizza dough (see recipe), or store bought
• Garlic Cream Sauce (see recipe)
• 3 large onions, caramelized (see recipe)
• 5 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled or chopped
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
•  fine corn meal

Make sure you have prepared all of your elements prior to making the pizza. This includes the caramelized onions, the dough, the bacon, and the sauce. Begin by preheating your oven, preferably with a pizza stone inside, to 500 degrees. Cut the prepared pizza dough in half and let it rest on about 1/2 cup of the flour.

Punch down the dough, and begin rolling it out with your hands. If you have your own technique, that is great. However you roll it out, make sure you get about a 12 inch diameter or so. Nothing too fancy. I know that all of my pizzas are very rustic in shape, but I do tend to get it into a circular shape.

Lightly dust a pizza wheel (if you have one) with the corn meal. This does one thing and one thing really well. It allows for your pizza to come off of the stone very easily.

Once dusted, add the rolled out dough. Spoon on the garlic cream sauce, spreading it onto the dough. Shower the caramelized onions on top of the sauce, add the bacon, then top completely with the mozzarella cheese.

Slide the pizza into the preheated oven onto the pizza stone, and cook until the cheese is bubbly and the edges of the crust are nice and golden brown. Transfer the pizza to a cutting board or wire rack to let rest of a few minutes before digging in.

The end result is a perfectly textured crust, with the sweetness of the onions, a bit of smokiness and texture from bacon, and this creamy garlic sauce that will just get everyone saying things like ‘oooooommmm, ahhhhhhh, yummmmmm’, and everything in between.

You might want to just go ahead and repeat this process with the other half of the dough, or do what I do, look into your refrigerator and see what you have. Then, make something up, and make it your own. You might be glad you did. Enjoy!