Double-crusted pizza night!

We don't make pizza nearly enough, but when we do, we like to have fun and not make your ordinary pie. The recipe for the Top and Bottom Crust Pizza we had for dinner tonight called for a pound of prepared pizza dough, but I buzzed together our trusty and favorite Whole Wheat Pizza Dough. All of the work is done in the food processor and it literally comes together in a flash!

The whole wheat dough will need to be divided in half as one piece will form the bottom crust and the other will be rolled out to hide the filling and form a crust on top. The filling inside starts out by sautéing chopped onions and red bell peppers until the two have softened - a couple cloves of minced garlic are then added and it is left to cook just until you can start to smell the sweet garlic aroma drift out from the skillet. You could use green peppers if you wish - we find them a bit too harsh though and will usually replace them with reds.

Be sure to allow enough time for the above veggie mixture to cool down before you mix in the other ingredients. When it comes time to add the filling, it is combined with a generous mixture of mozzarella and cheddar cheeses along with diced ham and fresh parsley. This mixture is fairly heavy, so to counteract that and help bind it together, the ingredients are mixed with a couple of whisked eggs. I was worried it would make the filling too "egg-y" or omelet-like, but we both agreed that it didn't turn out that way - it just added some lightness to the inside. To help the crust achieve a beautiful golden brown color, the double-crusted pizza is brushed with an egg wash.

Our pizza was completely cooked in about 35 minutes, but it may take a little more or less depending - I cooked ours on a pizza stone, but you can use a pizza pan or sheet pan if needed. We especially enjoyed the duo of cheeses - the mozzarella added that gooey stringy texture while the cheddar brought a sharp bite. Play around with the protein - we used ham, but you could use smoked turkey, pepperoni or go crazy and fill it with some chopped salami. The crust is rolled thin enough so it isn't too thick, yet it is still sturdy enough that it doesn't flop around when you lift it off the plate. We also quite liked the fact how clean it was to eat - the eggs bound the filling just enough so it didn't fall out at all and you could easily pick up the slice to take a bite.

Recipes
Top and Bottom Crust Pizza