Halloween Pizza: Delightfully Frightful

To make the pizza dough

• All purpose flour
• Warm water 
• Yeast
• Sugar
• Salt

To make the pizza sauce

• Tomato paste
• Olive oil
• Water 
• Basil
• Salt
• Black pepper

For the toppings

• Mozzarella cheese
• Green and black olives
• Red and green peppers
• Red onion
• Tomato
• Mushrooms

Preparing the pizza dough

Begin by mixing the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add the warm water add to the bowl and mix to create a basic pizza dough. Flour a clean, flat surface, and knead the dough on it, 2-3 minutes, until you have a little dough ball.

Place the dough ball in a clean bowl, cover, and allow it to rise for 25-30 minutes. Divide the dough into three parts (one for each pizza!), and use a rolling pin to roll each one out. The thickness is your choice but I almost always opt for a thin crust.  

Prepare your baking sheet by lightly brushing it with vegetable oil. Place the rolled out doughs on the tray. 

Prepare your pizza sauce by mixing the tomato paste, olive oil, water, basil, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Use a spoon or brush to spread on to your pizza doughs. Your pizza is now ready for toppings! Depending on how you plan to decorate there are slightly different steps. 

Adding the toppings

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

For the Frankenstein’s monster pizza only: Sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese over the dough.

Bake all three pizza doughs (one with cheese, two with sauce only) for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the oven. 

For the Frankenstein’s monster pizza: Uses slices of red onion, tomato, and green olives to make the eyes. Chop up and make the mouth, nose, and hair using bell peppers. And finally, make the ears using mushroom slices.

For the mummy pizza: Use long mozzarella strips to make the bandages and slice black olives for the eyes.

For the spider pizza: Use mozzarella strips to create the spider web, and chopped black olives to make the spiders. 

Bake all three pizzas for a further 1-2 minutes at 400 degrees F. Enjoy the spooky season!

Work with what you’ve got

Homemade pizzas are inherently different from restaurants for the simple reason that typically the kind of oven used for baking pizzas in restaurants aren’t available in homes (at least, not my home. Stanley Tucci has a lovely wood-fired oven. If you happened to be connected, and can get me an invite to Stanley’s next pizza night, I’d be very appreciative).

As such we can’t bake pizzas at the super high temperatures and with the same airflow that restaurants do. We’re not just blasting a super high oven temperature because we want our pizzas cooked to be thin and slightly crispy, not burnt.

Get creative with your toppings

One thing homemade pizzas have no shortness of is topping options. The world is your oyster. Get as creative as you can with toppings and decorations.

Don’t over top your pizza

Avoid the urge to add too many toppings to your pizza. Not only will you not be able to enjoy the flavours, but you might even compromise the integrity of the dough, meaning it’ll tear or fall off too easily. It’s also harder to cook through properly.

A touch of garlic

If you’re feeling fancy, brush your pizza dough with olive oil infused with garlic. It’s a delicious little hit of flavour. (I’ve not included it in this recipe, as it’s generally a less popular option when cooking for kids.) 

Play with your cheeses

This recipe uses mozzarella cheese but you can easily swap it out for cheddar cheese or a number of other cheeses, depending on exactly what you’re looking to do.