Bear's "Sporkie" Pizza
Anyone familiar with
the Bertuccis pizza chain will probably recognize their name, "Sporkie", for a pizza with sweet Italian sausage and ricotta cheese. This is my take on making this at home as there are no Bertuccis anywhere near Texas.
It all starts with a good pizza crust:
Bear's Bread Machine Pizza Dough
16.75 oz bread flour
1 T dry milk
2 T sugar
5/8 t kosher salt
1 T olive oil
12 oz
water
1 t instant yeast
1. Use "pizza dough" setting on bread machine, or use your usual means for mixing dough (stand mixer with dough hook, or by hand for those wanting to develop upper body strength).
2. Knead on floured surface until elastic. It will start off very sticky!
3. Divide dough into quarters, and stretch out into four rectangle, two each on two half sheet pans. (If you have the skills to "toss" pizza dough, more power to you!)
4. Let rise in warm place for one half to three-quarters of an hour.
5. Preheat oven to 450ºF.
6. Add toppings of choice (See below for "Sporkie").
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until looking good!
"Sporky" Topping
pizza sauce ¹
mozzarella cheese, grated
ricotta cheese
pre-cooked Italian sweet sausage
1. Spread sauce over pizzas. Top with grated cheese.
2. Add dollops of ricotta cheese, and bite-sized pieces of sausage.
¹ I've tried a bunch of pizza sauce recipes, but have not yet found one that passes muster (they've all tasted too much like spaghetti sauce or just tasted plain weird), so I still use jarred. If you have a good recipe for pizza sauce that doesn't taste like spaghetti sauce, I'm all ears.
1
) Move the pizzas to a cutting board to slice.
