Mini Pizzas With Cranberry Crust is a delightful appetizer filled with lots of flavor and colorful toppings and when served at a party it vanishes in matter of seconds and you wish you had some more!
Individual pizzas always make a delicious appetizer right? Have you tried adding cranberries to your pizza dough? Have you tried topping your pizza with cranberries and cream cheese? Sounds interesting right? If you have these ingredients at your disposal, make this pizza right away; but if you don't then buy them during your next grocery shopping and prepare this recipe for your family. In short, make these mini pizzas anyway. I bet you won't be disappointed, instead you'll get a lot of praise from your family and friends! Who wouldn't love these treats when every bite tastes fantastic!!
The recipe is super simple. Prepare cranberry puree and add it while making pizza dough. The dough will be chewy with right amount of tartness. Not too much or not too less 🙂 For the pizza topping I have added cranberries, cream cheese, orange- and yellow-mini peppers, jalapenos and red onions. You may add any toppings of your choice including your favorite meat but please do not skip cranberries and cream cheese. Their combination tastes pretty awesome on the delicious crust. Just see the magic that happens when these ingredients are combined 🙂
If there are any scrap or left-over dough, sauce, cheese and toppings - do not discard. Just roll the scrap dough into a rectangle, dump in the left-overs and tightly roll to seal them. Using serrated knife cut into pieces and place cut side down and bake along with pizzas. These will not only look pretty, but you will have additional treats to munch on, and it will also taste amazing!
Sparkling Cranberry Panak. The folks at Cape Cod were so prompt in sending me their products and following up with me during the process.
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Preparation time : 20 minutes
Rest time : 1 hour 30 minutes
Serves : 14 to 16 mini pizzas depending on the size
Ingredients for Mini Pizzas With Cranberry Crust
Warm water - ½ cup + ½ cup
Cape Cod Select premium Frozen Cranberries - ¾ cup
Sugar - 1 tsp
Active dry yeast - 1 packet ( 2 ¼ tsp)
Salt - 1 tsp
All purpose flour - 2 ¾ cup divided
Olive oil - to grease
For the topping:
Marinara sauce / pasta sauce - ¾ cup
Cayenne powder / red chile powder - ½ teaspoon ( optional)
Pepper jack cheese grated - 8 oz (mozzarella may be used)
Cape Cod Select premium Frozen Cranberries - ½ cup
Cream cheese cut into cubes - 4 oz to 5 oz
Orange mini sweet peppers chopped - ⅓ cup
Yellow mini sweet peppers chopped - ⅓ cup
Jalapeno chopped - 2
Red onions chopped - ½
Steps to prepare Mini Pizzas With Cranberry Crust
Step I
- In a large bowl, add in ½ cup warm water and sugar. Sprinkle yeast and leave it undisturbed for 5 to 10 minutes. Let the yeast activate.
- While the yeast is activating, grind the cranberries with ½ cup warm water to form smooth puree.
Step II
- Add the cranberry puree, salt, 1 cup flour to the yeast mixture and mix using wooden spoon. Add in remaining flour and knead for 5 to 10 minutes to form soft dough.
- Cover it and let it rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Step III
- Preheat the oven to 400 degree F.
- Dust the working surface and transfer the risen dough.
- Roll it into large rectangle (not too thick or too thin) and using pizza cutter, cut them into 14 mini rectangles and place it on parchment lined baking pan. Just keep aside any scrap dough.
- In a bowl add marinara sauce and red chile or cayenne powder, and mix. Addition of chile powder is optional.
- Spread sauce on each crust, top it with cheese, followed by cranberries, cream cheese and other desired toppings of your choice.
- If there are any scrap dough, you can roll them into mini pizzas or to make it little differently, roll the scrap dough into rectangle, dump in any remaining sauce, cheese and toppings and tightly roll to seal them. Using serrated knife to cut into pieces and place cut side down on a parchment lined baking pan.
- Bake in preheated oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until the crusts are golden brown. The crust must be crisp and chewy
- Mini Pizzas With Cranberry Crust is now ready. Serve and enjoy!
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Jenni LeBaron
The cranberries and jalapenos look like they are the perfect pairing of sweet and spicy!
Cathleen
Pizza with cranberries??? Yes please! This sounds so delicious. We eat pizza at LEAST once a week, so this will definitely be on my to-do list!
Pearl Rodrigues
I'm loving the bright colors. I think these are perfect to serve for a party. My guest are surely going to enjoy these little treats
Sharon
These mini pizzas look so good! These would make a great appetizer for the holidays.
Marisa Franca
Mini pizzas are ideal for snack and appetizers. What a great treat for watching afternoon or evening sports. I must confess I hadn't thought about cranberries with pizza but now that's all I"m thinking about.