I’m doubling down on beets today with this beet pizza that’s made with a beet dough crust. You can’t really taste the beets in the crust, so that’s why I added sliced beets to the topping, but look at that color! It’s so perfect for spring and along with that asparagus season is here, so I threw some in with mini heirloom tomatoes, goat cheese and soft boiled eggs.
I seriously love this pizza. My family—not so much. One, I can’t get Matt near goat cheese; and two my little guy gave it the “ewww” and said it looks like Barney throw-up. Fine by me, because I happily had it for dinner and lunch the next day.
I’m keeping the text short today because I’m set to madness trying to get things in order before the baby comes. And sorry the post is a bit picture heavy, but I couldn’t help myself, the light was great and the food was so colorful.
Beet Crust Pizza
Yield: Yields 6-8 servings
Ingredients:
Crust (makes two 12 inch crust)
- 1 cup lukewarm water
- 2 teaspoon active-dry
- 17 ouncesunbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons honey
- ¾ cup pureed beets (about 2 large beets, roasted and peeled)
Topping
- 4 oz. goat cheese
- 10-12 stalks of asparagus, trimmed, blanched and then tossed in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and ¼ teaspoon of salt and pepper
- 3 soft boiled eggs, sliced
- 1 roasted beet, sliced
- 4 oz. mini heirloom tomatoes, halved
- 3-4 tablespoons pesto (optional)
- 1 handful of watercress (optional)
Directions:
To make crust:
Preparation: Place pizza stone on lower middle rack. Heat oven to 500° F.
- Combine and stir water and yeast in a mixing bowl until mixture resembles miso soup. Add flour salt, honey and pureed beets to yeast mixture and combine until dough just comes together.
- Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead the dough until the flour is incorporated, about 5 minutes or until it is smooth and elastic. The dough should be moist and slightly tacky. (If it’s sticky, add in more flour 1 tablespoon at a time until smooth). Form dough into a ball. Lightly oil a bowl and place dough in, turning once to coat dough with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm area to double in size, about 1 ½ to 2 hours. Once doubled evenly divide dough in half and refrigerate one half for another time or double the topping recipe to make two 12 inch pizzas.
- Lightly grease a sheet of parchment paper with olive oil. Transfer one ball of dough to parchment and stretch it out by hand as much as possible. Lightly brush olive oil on another piece of parchment paper and place it on top of hand-flattened dough. Use a rolling pin and work from the middle of the dough outward to flatten dough to ¼ inch thickness. Peel off top parchment paper.
Note: Dough can be made ahead of time and refrigerated for up to three days.
Assembly:
- If using pesto, evenly spread it on the crust with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon, leaving ½ inch border. Top with 3 oz. goat cheese on top and layer with asparagus, soft boiled egg slices, mini heirloom tomatoes and remaining 1 oz .of goat cheese.
- Slide the pizza (with the parchment underneath) on to the hot pizza stone. Bake for 3-5 minutes until pizza crust starts to slightly brown. Rotate the pizza once and remove parchment, continue to bake for another 3 minutes. Remove from oven. Optional: Garnish and with watercress, or any choice of greens you prefer. Slice and serve.
Notes
:
- The pesto is optional and not necessary. If you do use pesto, keep in mind the crust will be chewier and softer rather than on the crispier side, than if no pesto were used.
- Of course change out any of the toppings to suit your preference.
Oh man, the colour is just gorgeous! Beets are delicious, but I have to admit part of why I love them so much is because of their colour. I’ve made beetroot pasta before, never pizza crust. Gotta try this soon!
Love the sound of a beet crust! What an amazing colour!
The prettiest pizza I ever did see
This is hands down the most gorgeous pizza I’ve ever seen. Excited to try it!
This is the most beautiful/delicious-looking pizza I have ever seen- I would absolutely love to try it. Do you think it could be made gluten-free?
You are officially my hero. This is the best pizza recipe I have EVER seen.
I absolutely LOVE the color of this dough – totally going to make it this weekend! And I don’t even like beets! Well, I take that back, I did make a beet hummus and it was really good – a nice sweet/savory combo.
Absolutely stunning, a work of art!
heidi @ a week from thursday replied: — April 23rd, 2014 @ 5:13 am
I couldn’t have said it better. It’s so pretty, I’d be afraid to eat it.
Wow–my beet crust pizzas never look this vibrant. glorious color!
This is effing amazing.
I have to say this post looked like the gorgeous still lifes that you see hanging in national galleries! I would probably initially be turned off by the idea of Beet crust, but you have made it look so delicious with all of the pretty produce.
I can’t stop staring at this pizza! It is so colorful and beautiful (but I have to admit to getting a huge laugh about Barney throw up!). 😉 And really…you are one person who never has to apologize for putting up a picture heavy post!
Just wondering.. Would kneading this dough dye your hands red?
This is absolutely gorgeous! Never hurts that it is vegetarian either!
I made this last night and the taste from the beets in the crust is absolutely delicious.
Definitely a winner… mmm…
I only ended up using half of the dough because I rolled it out really thin – so we’re having pizza again for lunch today! 🙂
My crust was no-where near as gorgeous as yours (different country, different colour beets?) but they were also “getting old” which is one of the reasons I decided to jump into this!
Definitely going to make this again and was a sure winner with my fiance 🙂
Looks delicious, what is active-dry?
How gorgeous is that! You certainly have an eye for color. I thought the picture of the vegetables together were so pretty, I was a bit sad to see them diced up. 🙂 But they were put to good use. All your recipes look delectable. Great work!
Loving the colors on this one!
The photography and colors make me lose it, so gorgeous! Can’t wait to tackle this one 🙂
Is it possible to use coconut flour instead of all purpose flour?
so beautiful- !
Thank you for the inspiration. I made my own Pink Pizza 🙂
So biotiful !!!!
Clever recipe! Question: if I use all white whole wheat flour, will I still get the red color from the beets?
OMG!! That pizza is the most beautiful pizza i have ever seen! I’m inlove haha. Need to do this asap!! Tanks for sharing.