Blog Archives
Pizza Lab #10: Apple Crisp Pizza
Pizza Lab is a fun theoretical column in which Meg A. and Erik S. explore their innermost passion for baking and eating pizzas. It exists purely for the sake of experimenting in the kitchen. It may not necessarily be cost-effective everytime, so don’t try this at home kids.
It’s interesting to think there’s been ten Pizza Labs already. One a month, and we’ve got plenty more in the pipeline, trust me. That brings me to our first Fall-themed Pizza Lab! One of my favorite Fall foods/crops is apples. And actually not just Fall-wise, apples are some of my favorite food period, since they’re a delight to eat. A good apple is crisp, sweet, refreshing and juicy. Eating one is so frigging good that it’s basically like eating and drinking at the same time, considering how juicy and pleasant they are compared to some of your less juice-filled fruits (I’m looking at you, mangosteen). One perennial apple dish we all enjoy this time of year is none other than apple crisp, a delicious baked amalgamation of oats, sugar, spices, and apple slices. Which incidentally sounds way too much like some sort of stupid autumnal nursery rhyme adage, but I digress. This was the perfect opportunity to try and bring apples and pizza together in some holy-ass food matrimony.
Erik S. So we have been pretty much drowning in apples lately.
Meg A. That we have. Though I think “crushed by” is the more appropriate term since we didn’t make enough cider to drown in. But I’m pretty sure a sink full of apples would do some damage.
Erik S.This is true. And all being said, I’m not complaining either. Apples are my favorite fruit afterall.
Meg A. They are really yummy. Though actually, we had the idea for this pizza way before the onslaught of apples occurred.
Erik S. Yeah it’s going way back actually. This pizza was conceived in thought back when we were discussing our pretzel pizza.
Meg A. Yup! I’m really glad we saved it for its own pizza though.
Erik S. Yeah, it was a long time coming since apple season was months away at that point, but it was worth it. I am definitely spoiled, having an apple tree in the yard.
Meg A. You are very spoiled. Some of us actually have to leave our driveways to go get apples.
Erik S. Well I also don’t eat apples the rest of the year, so it balances out.
Meg A. I suppose.
Pizza Lab #6: Pretzel Pizza
Pizza Lab is a fun theoretical column in which Meg A. and Erik S. explore their innermost passion for baking and eating pizzas. It exists purely for the sake of experimenting in the kitchen. It may not necessarily be cost-effective everytime, so don’t try this at home kids.
One of my favorite tags here is the crazy crossovers tag. It’s reserved for the delightful results of worlds colliding.. Unsurprisingly, Pizza Lab uses this tag everytime just because that’s really the basic gist of the column, pizza crossovers with other foods. This edition is no different, but to me feels like a true crossover because of the nature of the experiment. Some of the previous labs have been great, but weren’t particularly outlandish with regards to the foods involved. Our Pretzel Pizza in this Pizza Lab saw two classic snack foods combine in a way we didn’t think possible. We changed things up a bit, and it felt pretty special as far as pizza experiments go. The results were certainly worth it (after a ton of work).
Pretzel Pizza
Erik S. So this was our second dessert pizza that we’ve done. It was, what do they call it? A labor of love. Or no, an enormous pain in the asshole. That’s the term I was thinking of.
Meg A. Haha yeah…
Erik S. But my God was it worth it.
Meg A. Indeed. I wish it hadn’t been so much work so we might actually make it again. I was sad when I finished the last piece because I knew more than likely it wouldn’t be made again.
Erik S. Well, never say never… but yeah, let’s never make it again, haha.
Meg A. In fairness, if we always made our own dough this pizza wouldn’t have seemed like that much more work. But we’re lazy, so yeah.
Erik S. Well, if we made our own dough, we also wouldn’t have made it through six Pizza Labs.
Meg A. This is true.
Erik S. There’s a reason we buy our dough from pizzerias.
Meg A. Yes, because we’d rather spend $3 on pre-made dough than 3 hours on making our own.
Pizza Lab #4: Strawberry Shortcake Pizza
Pizza Lab is a fun theoretical column in which Meg A. and Erik S. explore their innermost passion for baking and eating pizzas. It exists purely for the sake of experimenting in the kitchen. It may not necessarily be cost-effective everytime, so don’t try this at home kids.
After four Pizza Labs, ideally I would have liked to think our staff has reached a sort of groove, and finally come up with a method to our decision-making process involved in selecting and formulating new ideas for pizzas.
That hasn’t happened yet. Hence my use of the qualifier “ideally”.
Instead, each new edition of Pizza Lab is more thrown together than a middle school student’s Livejournal page in the year 2004. The latest one demonstrates this perfectly, reaching fruition through basically nothing more than the exclamation “Oh! Let’s make a dessert pizza!” What followed was a long debate over whether to use pudding or not. That’s really as complicated as we get. Sorry if that disappoints any budding foodologists in the audience. Know what wasn’t disappointing? This pizza.
Strawberry Shortcake Pizza
Erik S. So this was our first forray into the world of dessert pizza.
Meg A. Yep. We’ve been talking about doing a dessert pizza since starting pizza lab though. For awhile it was just kind of the abstract concept of dessert, and not a specific one though.
Erik S. Yeah, desserts is an awfully broad term, we all tend to throw it around like it means one food. i.e. “IT’S TIME FOR DESSERT!” is rarely answered with the philosophical pondering “But… what is dessert?”
Meg A. True. Until it’s time to decide on a pizza.
Erik S. Right.
Meg A. You tossed out a few ideas for what kind of dessert pizza we could do. We ultimately decided on strawberry shortcake. It made perfect sense considering that shortcake itself is a bit of a rich, doughy cake.
Erik S. Also because strawberry shortcake is my favorite type of dessert.
Cheat Codes: Microwave Chocolate Lava Cake
So one of the things I missed out on in college was that whole ‘college life’ lifestyle. Being thrifty and living off of your meal plan and surviving with your school chums off what you had. I commuted to a school I hated, and so as soon as class was over I bolted home as soon as physically possible. One of the stereotypes I never got to enjoy were those adorable little lava cakes you make in the microwave. Because of this, I recently began looking up instructions for them online, and then decided to make my own much-needed revision. I say much-needed because most of the sites I’ve seen these posted on insist upon the use of self-rising flour or arbitrary measurements. Seems the makers of those recipes haven’t put together the foreign concept that baking a cake in your friggin microwave generally implies you can’t be bothered to know that self-rising flour is an actual thing. Not to mention, anyone who actually owns a bunch of self-rising flour probably has the means to simply make a pan of real brownies or molten cakes. Either way, here’s what I’m talking about.
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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