homage to sweet pizzas

One of my favorite pizzas of all time is the pear and gorgonzola pizza at California Pizza Kitchen. I almost had to initiate a tiny Japan-side riot when I heard they removed it from their menu, but they reinstated it before I came back so now we're all good. I love pizza bianca (no tomato sauce), and slightly sweet pizzas are even better.

I've been making a lot of pizza from scratch these days, using Peter Reinhart's oft-cited recipe (just google it) from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. You make a massive quantity of dough and then store a couple in the fridge (to use over 2-3 days) and a few in the freezer (to use over the next month or two). It's fantastic - dough goes from fridge to table in 2 hours.

We had a near overripe bosc pear sitting around, so I decided to try making my own version of the CPK pizza. Didn't have gorgonzola, so I just used mozz and feta, plus some halfway-caramelized (lazy!) onions and chopped walnuts. Didn't have the ceasar salad to go on top either. (So it was a little different! Who cares - it was still good.)

Let's talk pizza economics. CPK charges around $11 for that pizza. They probably only use an EIGHTH (weird-looking word!) of a pear on their pizza, because I COVERED my pizza in pear slices and I only managed to use a third of the thing. Cost for homemade? Half cup flour, yeast, pear, quarter onion, handful of walnuts, quarter cup of cheese...maybe $2.

No tossing pictures because...doughy hands and camera don't mix.

Pre-bake:



Post-bake:



MMMM MONOCHROMATIC!

No, it really was tasty. The yellow-brown cheese-and-carbs-and-caramelization color spectrum is probably the most delicious anyway.

Many thanks to Carla for the extended loan of her pizza stone! :)