Breakfast Pizza

Hello, it's the Haas Machine eating breakfast for dinner again. Surprise, surprise.

The other week I made my very first cinnamon rolls & they turned out pretty well. After that, breakfast has still been on my mind, even more than usual. This time, I decided to go a bit more crazy & made breakfast pizza. I figured that the combo of breakfasty-type foods (eggs! bacon!) earthy flavors (scallions! shallots! chives!) & pizza (crust! cheese!) would be a win, win.

Turns out it was a win, win, win.

Part of this win was the bacon that I bought from the Holmen Meat Market. I don't venture to Holmen all that often, but when I do it's usually for meat. I love how all of the meat that they sell is from local farms (all of the pork is from Holmen!) & how high quality everything is. Plus the market has all kinds of exotic teas, wines, beers, jams, & homemade salsas for sale. I think I spent half of our food budget there, but it was soo worth it. Good bacon is always worth it.

I was very weirded out by cracking eggs on to my pizza crust, but it got way less weird when I took my first bite. John even groaned, it was that good (especially when just a slight nod of approval is his non-emotional way of saying something is incredible). We will be making this pizza again (maybe even for breakfast some day if I'm really motivated) & I'm anxious to experiment with even more breakfasty toppings. Maybe we'll throw hash browns in the mix or some hollandaise. Ooh, or biscuits & gravy? Is that too far?

What's the strangest, most delicious thing you've put on a pizza?

Breakfast Pizza
Ingredients
For the dough:

2 to 2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4-ounce package (or 2 1/4 tsp) fast acting yeast

3/4 cup warm water, about 110 degrees F
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt

Cornmeal, for dusting
Bread flour, for dusting

For the pizza:
6 bacon strips
Olive oil, for drizzling
2 cups shredded mozzarella
6 large eggs
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 shallot, thinly sliced
Chives, minced
Scallions, trimmed & thinly sliced

Directions

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together yeast, warm water, sugar & olive oil. Let sit for about 3 minutes to fully dissolve & activate the yeast.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour & salt. With a rubber spatula, gradually mix the yeast mixture into the flour until just combined & dough barely holds together. Turn the dough out onto a clean counter surface dusted with flour. Knead the dough with flour-dusted hands until the dough has become smooth & elastic, about 10 minutes. The surface should bounce back slightly when pressed. Lightly grease a large mixing bowl with olive oil & place the dough in it. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap & set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Once doubled, punch the dough down & divide it into 2 equal pieces. Knead each slightly to form a uniform ball. Set aside & cover them with plastic wrap to rest for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, if you have a pizza stone, place it on the oven rack to warm & preheat the oven to 450. Generously dust the surface of a pizza stone with cornmeal.

Heat a large pan to medium-high, add the bacon strips, & pan-fry until crisp. Put the bacon on a plate lined with paper towels, let it cool, & then crumble into bite-size pieces.

Lightly dust a work surface with bread flour. Working with one ball of pizza dough, dip your hands & your dough in the bread flour, & pat the dough down into a disk shape. Once the disk is large enough, drape the dough over your fists and carefully start stretching & expanding the dough from underneath to form a round that is 10 to 12 inches in diameter.

Place the dough on the prepared pizza stone. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the dough &, using your fingers, brush the dough evenly with the oil. Sprinkle half of the mozzarella on to the dough. Crack 3 eggs over the top & season with salt & pepper.

Bake the pizza for 10 to 15 minutes, checking on it after 5 minutes & rotating if necessary to ensure that it is baking evenly. When the crust is golden, the cheese is melted, & the egg yolks are cooked to medium, carefully transfer the pizza to a cutting board. Sprinkle with half of the bacon, shallot, chives & scallions.  Prepare your second pizza the same way.

Dough recipe taken from the Food Network

Pizza recipe adapted from Dolcetto Confessions