Jalapeño Popper Pizza

Saying Jalapeño Popper Pizza three times almost becomes a tongue twister! OK, so I went there. Yes, I turned the jalapeño popper into a pizza because I was craving some jalapeño poppers but really did not want to core out a handful of jalapeno peppers, stuff them, coat them, and fry them. Sure, I have made jalapeño poppers before, along with some jalapeño popper dips, as well as stuffed jalapeños, but gosh darnnit, I wanted to make a pizza, and so I did.

I do love jalapeño poppers, but they do require a bit of time to make, at least in my opinion and as I was already making pizza dough, I decided to take what I love about the poppers and turn that into a pizza, and whoa was it ever good. It had everything you wanted in a popper, but in slice.

Let’s get started.

Ingredients for the Pizza Dough (makes 3 pizzas):

• 3 3/4 cup of bread flour
• 2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
• 3/4 tsp table salt
• 3/4 plus a pinch of sugar
• 1 1/3 cups of room temperature water

Ingredients for the Pizza (makes one pizza):

• 1/3 of the pizza dough, shaped into your desired circumference and thickness
• 6 oz cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 whole jalapeño peppers, roasted, skins peeled and discarded, sliced
• 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
• pizza stone (optional)

Make the dough by adding the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. Mix. Add the water, and with your wooden spoons, or hands, mix until blended. I use my KitchenAid for this process to keep everything in the bowl during the rising process. Mix for about 30 seconds. The dough should be a bit stiff. Cover the bowl with a towel, and let it sit at room temperature until the dough has doubled in volume, about 2 hours.

Once risen, divide into three portions. With one of the portions, add some flour to a large pastry board, and start rolling it out into your desired pizza shape. If you are adventurous, try tossing the pizza, to get your desired thickness.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone inside.

Place the shaped pizza dough onto the preheated pizza stone, and bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, then smear on the cream cheese. Top with the cheddar cheese, the mozzarella cheese, then arrange the sliced jalapeño peppers.

Place back into the oven for an additional 15 minutes or until the crust is nice and golden and the cheese is fully melted.

Remove and let cool for about 5 minutes before slicing into it, then dig in.

When you first bite into it, you get that surprise from the cream cheese base, and it has that richness to it, but when you get that paired with the roasted jalapeño peppers, well, then it all comes together. This is a real treat, and one slice will do you just fine. Hope you enjoy.