I came up with this Apple Cinnamon Dessert Pizza recipe on a whim while trying to come up with a dessert to go with some homemade calzones, but that’s a story for another day.  This recipe comes together really easily and leaves the door wide open for customization.  The crust is made from a modified version of my standard pizza crust.

Apple Cinnamon Dessert Pizza

The pizza I made is probably a bit over the top, but it can easily be tamed into something a bit more manageable.

Dough Ingredients:

• 3/4 tsp. Salt
• 4 cups All Purpose Flour
• 2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast (1 packet)
• 1 3/8 cups Lukewarm Water
• 3 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. Ground Nutmeg

Add all the ingredients to your stand mixer and knead with a dough hook until it is uniform and pulls away from the bowl.

Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a moistened towel.  Let it rest for an hour.  You can skip this step, but the crust ends up a bit tougher.  Your choice — speed or texture.

This dough recipe will make about 3 12 inch pizzas, so divide it up however you want to.  We made one really big pizza with a good sized chunk of dough left over. (We used it to make some cinnamon raising flat-bread, but again, that’s for another day.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and we’ll move on to the toppings…

Topping Ingredients:

• 1 21 ounce can of Apple Pie Filling
• 1/2 cup of All-Purpose Flour
• 1/4 cup of Brown Sugar
• 3 tablespoons of Butter or Shortening
• 1 teaspoon of Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of Ground Nutmeg
• 1 cup of Powdered Sugar
• 2 tablespoons Water (more if needed)

Streusel Topping Instructions:

Combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter or shortening in a bowl.  Cut the butter/shortening into the flour and brown sugar using a fork.  Mix until it looks a bit like wet sand.

Back to the crust…

Roll your crust out on a pizza pan.

Spread the apple pie filling all over the crust.  Spread the sauce all the way to the edge if you can.

Sprinkle the streusel all over the apples.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until the crust is done and the streusel is crisp.

Mix the powdered sugar and water in a small bowl until combined.  If this glaze is a bit too thick, add a little water.  If it’s too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.

Pour the glaze all over the finished pizza.  Slice and serve!

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda’s:

• Use another flavor of pie filling to make a completely different pizza
• Make a fruit sauce from scratch rather than using canned filling
• Try making this recipe in a dutch oven.  Use about 8 coals on the bottom and 16 on top.
• This is the big one:  I would have made my standard pizza crust recipe and, before adding the spices, I would have cut out a third of the dough to make the dessert pizza crust from rather than using a whole batch of dough.  A 16-inch dessert pizza probably is a bit over the top, but either way it was good!