Sundays with Sparky: Food Tech 1.0 - Paper Pizza

Last year, Sparky and his buddy, Mr. Bean, who have been Science Fair partners since 1st Grade, saw a preview for the pilot of Future Food, featuring local Mad Scientist Chefs Homaro Cantu and Ben Roche.  Sparky instantly became enamored with the concept of downloadable printable pizza, and together, they decided to make paper pizza for their science project.

Here's what we wound up with (FYI: Mr. Bean is a bit shy, and didn't want any of his classmates to see the video, but offered me permission for "boring grown-ups" to see it.  If you know Sparky's classmates, please don't spill the...beans.)


Paper Pizza from Michele Hays on Vimeo.


Paper Pizza:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp olive oil
about 1/2 cup warm water

Mix ingredients thoroughly.  Knead a few times, then allow to rest for 20 minutes. Divide dough in desired parts (one for each color/flavor) and knead in flavoring and coloring agents.  Roll out with a rolling pin - to get desired thinness, flour the dough well on both sides, and wrap the dough around the rolling pin as you continue to roll, pressing as hard as you can.

Flavoring agents:

Tomato sauce: grind approx. 3 oz of dry sundried tomatoes in the blender until you have small chunks.  Toast the ground tomatoes in a 200 degree oven for about 20 minutes, stirring periodically until they are dry (do NOT burn.)  Grind again after cooling.  Combine a few tablespoons each of sundried tomatoes and paprika along with a heavy pinch each of garlic powder, onion powder, dry basil and dry oregano.  Knead small amounts of this mixture into your dough until it reaches the desired color and flavor.

Pepperoni: fry pepperoni slices in olive oil.  Add a tablesoon of red wine and a few annato seeds.  Grind in the blender, adding a 1/4 tsp turmeric for color. Knead into dough as above.

Cheese: finely grate parmesan cheese and add a pinch of garlic powder.  Knead into dough as above.

After rolling each layer to the desired thickness, cutting, assembling and re-rolling the assembled pizza (you will probably want to use a plastic sheet under your rolling pin to prevent sticking) bake for about 10 minutes in a 300 degree oven or until the edges turn golden brown and the center area is warm.  It should smell like fresh pizza.  Cool and enjoy!