Four Pepper Pizza + Date Night
THIS RECIPE IS SPONSORED BY DELALLO | OPINIONS ARE MY OWN
In our home, the ideal “date night” doesn’t involve getting gussied up and wearing uncomfortable shoes to a lavish restaurant where we have to sit all stiff-like. Sure, my husband and I clean up very well, but there’s something about those types of places that makes me feel apprehensive and anxious. Am I sitting up straight enough? Should I have painted my nails red instead of turquoise? Did I make things weird when I told the waiter he could fill my wine glass to the top?
I guess that’s why the ideal date night in our home involves homemade pizza, a good flick, and grocery store-bought wine.
Fill that glass.
To me, there’s something incredibly romantic about cooking with that special someone in the comfort of a shared kitchen space. When I’m all floured-up and kneading dough on the counter with my husband standing next to me slicing toppings with great precision, it is downright swoon-worthy. Forget the pottery scene from Ghost; our pizza making is way more amorous.
And this Four Pepper Pizza? What a way to spice things up!
For our most recent date night in, we gave DeLallo’s Italian Pizza Dough Kit a whirl.
This pizza dough kit comes complete with a packet of yeast and type 00 flour. Type 00 flour is derived from high-quality wheat and is milled into a superfine powder-like texture. (Guys, it’s SO soft in your hands!) This flour is important for folks like me who have a history of ripping pizza dough in a fit of excitement while trying to flatten it out. This stuff gives you the elasticity you need for solid pizza-making. Seriously, it’s a godsend. Whether you’re making a thin and crispy Neopolitan-style pizza or a thick and chewy focaccia, elasticity is molto importante! With that said, this flour isn’t exclusive to pizza. You can make stromboli, calzones, flatbreads, and deliciously spongy focaccia with it.
I plan to make ALL those things.
But first, pizza pie.
My husband and I kinda sorta obsess over different peppers — spicy, briny, sweet, you name it. And although our Four Pepper Pizza recipe has been kickin’ around our home for a while, this time was different; this time it received special treatment with a glorious mélange of DeLallo’s peppers including Red Sweet Peppers, Calabrian Chili Peppers, Hot Banana Pepper Rings, and Tri-Colored Pepperazzi.
All of these sweet, tangy, and spicy flavors paired *perfectly* with our fresh and pillowy buffalo mozzarella!
The result was nom-tastic. See for yourself.
Not sure if DeLallo is available near you? Find out here, or shop their online store!
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Get the Recipe:
Four Pepper Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 DeLallo Italian Pizza Dough Kit, or use your fave pizza dough recipe
Based on one 10" pizza
- 1 TBSP olive oil, optional; this is for garlic crust
- Garlic salt, optional; this is for garlic crust
- 1/2-1 cup Pizza sauce
- 8 oz fresh buffalo mozzarella, sliced in 1/4-inch thick slices
- 3 oz DeLallo Red Sweet Peppers, sliced into long thin slices
- 2 oz DeLallo Tri-Color Pepperazzi, halved or quartered
- 1 oz DeLallo Calabrian Peppers, full or sliced
- 1 oz DeLallo Hot Banana Pepper Rings
- Fresh basil leaves, for garnish
- Cracked black pepper, optional
Instructions
Dough Prep
- In a large bowl, combine the flour and yeast. Add 1 1/4 cups of lukewarm water. Stir with a fork until a shaggy dough begins to form.
- Generously flour a clean surface, and transfer the dough onto it. Knead the dough by hand for about 3 minutes, or until the dough becomes soft and smooth.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl. Cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and set aside to rise. This should only take 45 minutes. Once this is done, you can either get to pizza-making, or refrigerate the dough for use within 1-3 days.
- Once the dough has risen, pre-heat the oven to 450 degrees F.
- Divide the dough into 2 or 4 equal parts. Note that dividing the pizza in 2 will result in 2 thick-crusted 10" pizzas while dividing it into 4 will result in 4 thin-crusted 10" pizzas.
- On a lightly oiled baking pan, start to form the pizza by hand. If using a pizza stone, make sure to sprinkle cornmeal over it so that the dough doesn't stick to the stone.
Pizza Assembly
- For a garlicky crust, lightly brush the outer areas of the pizza (where the crust would be) with olive oil. Then, lightly sprinkle some garlic salt over the oiled parts of the crust. This step is optional.
- Bit by bit, with a large spoon, ladle the sauce to the middle of the pizza and spread it out evenly over the dough.
- Add the slices of buffalo mozzarella followed by all the peppers. You can add some fresh basil leaves for garnish, and some cracked black pepper (optional).
- Place in the oven and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown, cheese is melted, and toppings are cooked.
18 Comments on “Four Pepper Pizza + Date Night”
I love, love, love this post. Though my husband and I occasionally do get gussied up for date night, we love staying in and cooking with each other. You’re so right, that is way more amorous than the scene from Ghost! And, pizza is always a great idea!
Thanks so much, Yasmein! I’m glad this post resonated with you. And I’m totally with you; getting gussied up once in a blue moon feels great! But as soon as I get home, I can’t tear my dresses off and put my sweats on fast enough. Lol :)
happy to hear you enjoyed using this pizza kit! I’ll definitely try it out when I can, pizza is always a good option ;)
Thanks, Kelly! I hope you like the kit, let me know how it goes :)
And I agree — pizza is LIFE.
Hahahahahha… “Fill that glass”. I feel you girl! Although I do love to go out for a special meal everyone in awhile (for the record, I’m all for turquoise nails, although I do love your red polish in these photos!), I find we usually enjoy the food we make together at home more we do when we go out. Our best date nights are usually spent in the kitchen with wine too!
Now — that’s my kind of pizza. I love veggie pizzas and the pizza dough kit seems perfect to take the guess work out of pizza making. Beautiful photos and flavours, as always. :) Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, love!
You know me, I don’t mess around! Haha. And yeah, it really can be nice to get out and fancy, but in-home dates really are *so* much better and much more intimate.
I was really excited about how well this dough turned out; like you said, it takes the guess work out of the process which is kind of nice when you’re trying to have a relaxing date night in (and a few glasses of that vino, to boot).
Thanks so much, girl! I hope you had a fab weekend and are having a stellar week <3
Your pepper pizza looks great! I do girls night in with my best friend all the time, because we can eat what we want and be in sweatpants, and no one cares lol.
Thanks, Shareba!
A girls night on the reg sounds amazing, and with food + sweatpants? LET ME INTO YOUR CIRCLE, GIRL. Haha.
I adore home-made pizza, but I’ve been getting hit-and-miss results with my dough. This makes me think that I need to pay a little more attention to the flour I’m using. The kit that DeLallo makes looks pretty wonderful, and I’m seriously jealous of all those amazing and delicious peppers you’ve got going there. If I could put together scratch pizza that quickly and that deliciously all the time, I think I’d be making a few too many pizzas. If that’s even a thing….
Homemade pizza is where it’s at! Bummer about your dough, though. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, even if in a fit of determination!
And dude. Those peppers. Totally amazeballs. They remind me of any of those peppers you’d get from, like, Italian friends of the family when they’d go nuts canning and give out some of their goods? The Italian families were always generous like that, haha. That’s totally what it reminds me of. They don’t taste processed and store-bought AT ALL.
Flour’s a lot easier to clean up than clay, that’s for sure! Ha if my boyfriend tried to get up in my business while I was at my wheel I’d be so grumpy, but it’s so sweet to make pizza together. That dough looks like a dream, and those peppers! What a gorgeous pizza!
Haha, I’m sure! Also, I had no idea you were into pottery. I’m jealous — you can make your own cool and rustic plates/bowls!
And thank you so much! We were really happy with how it turned out :)
hahaha that’s awesome. First, who doesn’t love a good pizza?! Second… I totally just pictured a mix of Ghost and you two covered in flour, kneading dough… lol This sounds delicious when you have a good pizza craving! MMMmmmm!
Thanks, Gabby!
Haha, you’re welcome for the super awkward image ;)
And heck yes. This pizza is legit and I think this pizza dough kit is going to be a staple in our pantry for those random-yet-never-really-that-random pizza cravings.
You described our typical date night, exactly :-) ! We love to cook together in our kitchen, especially PIZZA!! I use flour 00 for most of my baking and pizza/pasta dough, glad you liked it, too. This pizza you made looks unbelievably tasty! Love that you used mozzarella di bufala and the different pepper toppings must add a sweet ‘n salty, spicy flavor! My mouth is watering… :-)
I honestly hope that one day, we can meet the two of you. I just have this crazy feeling that we’d get along so well, and right off the bat. It doesn’t surprise me at all that the two of you do this on the regular! And mozzarella di bufala forever, amirite? <3
It’s a pepper fest this pizza! Love peppers too, it’s a whole world of them out there to try! Your pizza looks exquisite! A dreamy pizza for peppers lovers!
Thanks so much, Marie! It sure is a pepper fest — we fell head over heels for this bad boy. But I mean, it’s hard to go wrong with pizza ;)