Stuffed Crust Pizza

I have very fond memories of my family ordering delivery "Stuft-Crust" pizza when I was growing up.  I was a SUPER picky eater and the cheesy faux-mozzarella crust was my prize; it was the best part of the pizza, hands down.  Making pizza is a lot of fun so I thought I would experiment making my own cheese stuffed crust pizza.

Greasy, cheesy nostalgia

Only a little cheese leakage but still, do as I say, not as I do- Freeze that cheese!

I normally try and make things from "scratch" but since this was an experiment, I bought pre-made bagged pizza dough and used string cheese for the filling.  Fresh mozzarella or even cheddar would probably be much better, but I kind of wanted the slightly artificial, highly processed taste from my childhood "Stuft Crust" experiences.  It worked out well!

Yep, string cheese.  Don't judge me!

An important tip to avoid cheese leaking out from the crust is to pop the string cheese in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before getting ready to bake.  I didn't do this step and had a bit of ooze.  Oh well!  Lesson learned.

Fold the crust alllll the way around the frozen cheese to avoid leaks

It's normally a BIG no-no for me to roll out pizza dough.  I read that somewhere, I think- to always stretch it by hand.  But in this case, I wanted enough coverage to completely cover the cheese while still having lots of surface area for toppings.  Plop the string cheese around the edge and wrap them completely with the outer dough, making SURE to tuck the excess dough under the cheese for full coverage!

Topped and ready to bake

Top your pizza and place in a very hot oven, preferably with a preheated baking stone.  Done!

CHEESE STUFFED CRUST PIZZA

Ingredients:

1 lb pizza dough (I used bagged fresh dough found in deli section)

Pinch of corn meal

7-10 mozzarella sting cheese snacks, depending on how thin you roll the crust

Sauce and toppings of your choice

Method:

Put string cheese in freezer ~15 minutes

Preheat oven to 450* F, with pizza stone on bottom rack

Sprinkle parchment paper with a little cornmeal

Roll out pizza dough to large circle

Line outer edge with very cold string cheese

Roll excess dough over and fully around each stick

Season, sauce, and top pizza with your favorite toppings

Place parchment paper with pizza on bottom rack of oven, bake ~12 minutes

Move pizza stone to center rack, bake another ~10 minutes

Done!