Kids Love Pizza!

This is probably the only lab experience I never change. Why? Because all kids love pizza. As I am doing the demonstration I explain how the pizza joints use yeast dough that they make in the morning and each dough is portioned by size. (Have you ever called for a large pizza and they told you they didn't have any larges but they had mediums. Then you looked incredulously at the phone and said WTH?) and that yeast takes a long time to rise....blah, blah, blah, etc.

Since my 7th graders have only 44 minutes to get out all their equipment, make a pizza, clean up, put all the equipment away and eat at least one slice....three words....baking powder dough. Last year I tweaked the recipe and we made cheese stuffed crust pizzas. The kids love this lab! Very few ingredients yet all are mostly in your fridge already and BAM- a large pizza!

The following are pictures of my students showing you the steps, recipe follows:




Measure out the 3 dry ingredients, stir.









Add milk










and the oil, then mix until you see....








add a little extra flour if you need it until the dough sticks only to the spoon, not the bowl.








After kneading about 10 times, roll out the dough on a floured surface until it's 2 inches larger than your pan.







Take your cheese sticks and lay them on the EDGE of your pan.










Fold towards the inside of the pizza, use a little water to if you need to. When done you should NOT see any of the pan edges.






Spread out your sauce and place in 425 degrees oven for 10 minutes.
* You can't put the rest of the ingredients on yet, for baking powder is not strong enough to rise dough with the weight of cheese and pepperoni on it. Trust me!





Dump all your cheese and spread with your hands. Sprinkle on your Italian Seasoning and pepperoni.

Cook only for 5 minutes until you get this...





Kid Friendly Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza

2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup milk
1/4 c. oil
1/2 cup favorite tomato sauce
8 oz. mozzarella cheese, shredded
20 turkey pepperonis
1-2 tsp. Italian Seasoning
4 mozzarella sticks, cut into halves lengthwise or 8 pieces

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl, add the wet and stir until mixture forms a ball.

On floured surface, knead about 10 times. Use hands to form dough into a circle and roll dough out to about 3 inches larger than your pizza pan.

Very carefully, fold in dough into fourths and place it on pizza pan. Unfold.

Place the 8 halves of the cheese sticks around edge of pizza pan on dough. Fold dough over cheese sticks and press into dough to seal.

Spread 1/2 cup of tomato sauce on crust. DO NOT ADD ANYTHING ELSE !!!!!

Bake 10 minutes and keep oven ON.

Remove pizza from oven and top with shredded mozzarella, sprinkle on Italian seasoning and top with pepperoni.

Slide pizza off pan or use pizza peel and bake for 5 minutes without the pan or until cheese is melted.

Pick up what you need after work for some pizza and make this with your kids tonight. Seriously, this will increase your cool points AND you are teaching them a skill. Don't you want that THEY can make dinner for YOU on some nights?!