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!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Finished product~

OK, first legitimate recipe, yay!  Hubs and I love spicy food, and enjoyed buffalo chicken pizzas at Buffalo Brothers for the first couple years of dating. However,  it's much cheaper to make at home and tastes great!

First of all, if you want to be O.G. about it, you gotta use Frank's Red Hot sauce.  It's the original hot sauce used in Buffalo, New York for the first "hot wings" made.  It's a great sauce and very versatile (awesome on eggs!)  Also, we are blue cheese fans.  Blue cheese is my FAVORITE kind of cheese, and I was a cheesemonger, so I've eaten way more cheese than I'd like to admit.  But I do understand that it's not for everyone, and so ranch can easily be substituted for this pizza, so no worries!

Sometimes I make my own pizza dough, but most of the time I don't.  That's a recipe for another day.  For this, I used the bagged pizza dough found in the deli section of my grocery store.  The Pillsbury stuff in a can is fine too, but I prefer the texture of the bagged stuff!

Whatever butters your biscuit!

For the chicken, I used bone-in thighs because they were cheap.  But use whatever you'd like as long as you soak it in that sweet sweet Franks.

Before hitting the hot oven

Aw yes, cheesy goodness

RECIPE

Ingredients:

1 ball of pizza dough

2 cups diced chicken, mixed with 1/2 cup Frank's Red Hot

1/4 cup Frank's Red Hot sauce, for drizzling on top of pizza

3/4 cup chunky blue cheese dressing OR ranch dressing

2 cups mozzarella cheese

3 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese

1/4 cup diced green onions

1 teaspoon cornmeal

Salt, garlic, and cayenne to taste

Method:

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

~If no pizza stone, that's fine!  Just add 2 minutes to bottom rack cooking time and use a cookie sheet!~

Sprinkle a piece of parchment paper with corn meal

Stretch dough ball into desired pizza shape, coating the bottom with the cornmeal

Sprinkle dough with tiny pinch of salt, garlic, and cayenne pepper

Use the bottom of a spoon to spread dressing on the pizza as a base/sauce

Evenly distribute mozzarella on top

Place Frank's soaked chicken pieces all over

Sprinkle crumbled blue cheese over top of pizza

Drizzle Frank's Red Hot evenly over pizza

Put parchment paper with the pizza on the heated pizza stone, bottom of oven rack

Cook 5 minutes

Move pizza stone to center rack, cook 7 minutes or until golden brown crust and bubbling cheese

Remove and sprinkle with diced green onions

Cut pizza (just on parchment, never on the stone)

DONE!