Pizza and other pizza-like-creations are one of my favorite things to eat. However, as you may have noticed I have yet to post any calzones or strombolis because I’ve never been very good with rolled up pizza dough concoctions. They always turn into a big mess (still delicious just not photogenic) and I never understood why. But then I saw that Laurens posted a great “how to” on making stromboli and I decided to try it out. Her step-by-step photos really help! And I have to say it turned out to be the most beautiful stromboli that’s ever been in my kitchen (brushing the edges with egg was key to seal the edges). Behold!

I barely had enough patience to let it cool down before cutting it up so that I could dive into this marvelous creation. To distract myself I made sure I had plenty of pizza sauce to dip into.

Next I need to retry making calzones, and will definitely be brushing the edges of that with egg too. It seems to seal it up perfectly, in ways that simple pressing/folding cannot.

One year ago: Grilled Three Cheese Sandwich

STROMBOLI

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 lb pizza dough (I used Lauren’s recipe)

1/2 cup pizza sauce, plus more for dipping

1-1/2 cups grated Mozzarella cheese

6 thin slices hard salami

4 thin slices deli honey ham

1 egg, beaten

Dried parsley & Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Line large rimmed cookie sheet with parchment paper or spray lightly with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Spread pizza dough out on baking sheet to be approximately 10×16. Spread pizza sauce over 2/3′s of the dough lengthwise, leaving a 3×16 rectangle of plain dough along one of the edges. Top sauce with half the grated cheese, salami and ham. Top with remaining cheese.
3. Brush the plain strip of dough with the egg. Fold in the other sides about an inch and brush them with egg. Roll up like a jelly roll* lengthwise starting along the long edge of dough topped with all the fillings and ending with the plain strip of dough on the bottom of the roll.
4. Brush the entire stromboli with egg and gently cut slats in the top of the dough every 1-2 inches. Sprinkle parsley and cheese over top and bake 8-10 minutes or until bubbly and golden. Remove from oven, cool 5 minutes and slice into pieces. Serve with more pizza sauce.

*This is where using parchment paper is really handy because you can pick it up to help roll the dough.

Source: Adapted slightly from Lauren’s Latest.