Mini pizzas

What to expect

Mini pizzas, also known as pizza biscuits, or “pizzette” in Italian, are bite-size pizzas that are served as a starter or as finger food for buffets, birthdays, or other events with many people.

They are made with a simple proofed dough and can be topped with any topping, just like regular pizza.

Mini pizzas are the perfect starter or easy dinner for an evening with family and friends, as they are fun to make.

They are so tasty, crunchy, and light and everyone will absolutely love them. And if you have any leftovers, you can eat them as a tasty snack the day after.

Ingredients and substitutions

For the pizza dough

• Flour: you can make mini pizzas with any wheat or spelt flour. We like to use half all-purpose flour and half whole wheat flour.
  
• Water: lukewarm tap water.
  
• Yeast: you can use instant dry yeast or active dry yeast in the same quantities. You can also use fresh yeast, but in this case, you’ll need 3 times more fresh yeast than dry yeast.
  
• Sugar: just a teaspoon to help activate the yeast and facilitate proofing.
  
• Salt: optional.

For the toppings

You can use any toppings of your choice, just like for regular pizza. Here we use three toppings:

• Marinara sauce: with diced canned tomatoes, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic, and capers.
  
• Artichokes: with marinara sauce, artichoke hearts, and black olives.
  
• Potatoes: potatoes, rosemary, red onion, salt, pepper, and olive oil.

Instructions

Make the dough

Now, we transfer to a worktop and knead with our hands for about 8 minutes. If the dough is too wet and sticks to our hands we add more flour until it doesn’t.

We should aim for a smooth, soft and springy dough.

After kneading, we make a dough ball and put it in a lightly oiled container, or in one dusted with flour if we are trying to avoid oil.

Shape the dough

After proofing, we transfer the dough onto a worktop, fold it on itself 4 times to add some structure, shape it into a ball, and roll it out with the help of a rolling pin.

Dust the worktop with flour and roll out the dough down to about 3 to 4 millimeters.

The shape here is not important, but it’s important that the dough is quite thin. Mini pizzas should be light, thin, and crunchy, not thick and bready.

Next, we use a small glass or a round cookie cutter of about 2.7 inches or 7cm, to cut out the mini pizzas.

The one I got was very soft and moist, impossible to shape into mini pizzas, so what I did was, I shaped it into a ball first to give it some structure, waited 10 minutes for the gluten to relax, then rolled it out, and cut it into mini pizzas.

Our first topping is a simple marinara sauce. 

To a bowl add half a can of diced tomatoes, a couple of pinches of oregano, one thinly sliced clove of garlic, a pinch of salt, and a couple of twists of pepper.

Optionally we can also add a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.

Crush and mix the tomatoes with a fork, then take a spoon, and add some of the marinara sauce to the center of the mini pizzas.

To make the sauce stay in, apply some pressure with your fingers in the center of the pizza. 

Potatoes and rosemary topping

While the first tray is in the oven, we can prepare the second tray, which we top with potatoes, rosemary, and red onion.

All you have to do is peel the potatoes and cook them in the microwave at full power for 4 minutes or until soft. Now slice the potatoes then finely slice a red onion.

Like before, press down the pizzas in the center to make them fit the toppings then add about a slice of potato on top of each mini pizza.

Season the potatoes with a tiny pinch of salt and pepper, then add a pinch of thinly sliced red onion on top of the potatoes. 

Finally, top the pizzette with a few needles of rosemary, we can use fresh or dried rosemary, and in this case a tiny drizzle of olive oil. We tried without oil but they turned out too dry.

Get ahead

Tip 1: Prepare the dough the night before, or in the morning, and put it in the fridge for 8 to 20 hours max. 

Tip 2: You can also prepare the toppings in advance and keep them in the refrigerator for up to a day.

Make it yours

Make this recipe yours by changing the toppings and using your favorite veggies. Any vegetable work on top of pizza, for instance thinly sliced mushrooms would be perfect.

You can also add grilled veggies on top, such as grilled zucchini, aubergines, or red peppers, but in this case, you’ve got to grill the vegetables first.

Storage

Just like regular pizza, mini pizzas are best eaten straight out of the oven.

However, if you have leftovers, you can definitely keep them for a couple of days in a paper bag, then reheat them in the oven or under a broiler for a few minutes.