Hummus Pizza with Roasted Peppers

Makes : 1 Pizza

If you love hummus and have never had the pleasure of using it as a base for your pizza, I highly recommend trying it out. It works especially well with roasted peppers and an abundance of ingredients. I decided to roast my own peppers and make my own crust, so I opted for the deli-bought hummus -high in cumin content. The more flavorful the hummus the yummier the pizza. The crust recipe below compliments the hummus quite nicely. But feel free to save lots of time by purchasing crust, hummus, and roasted peppers in lieu of making your own. I am happy to say that this pizza was a sensation last night for dinner.

I topped mine with two oven-roasted yellow and red peppers, which is so incredibly easy I did it while the dough was rising and while I sautéed my mushrooms.

Ingredients

Crust Ingredients:

2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 1/2 cups flour and extra for correct consistency and rolling
2 tbsp olive oil and extra for brushing onto crust
2 tbsp cornmeal- optional

Topping Ingredients:

hummus
roasted red peppers
other toppings of choice

In addition to roasted peppers and sautéed mixed mushrooms, I added artichoke hearts, thinly sliced yellow tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, fresh basil, and black olives. I really wanted to use kalamata olives instead of black, but it dishearteningly did not work out that way.

Directions

To Oven Roast Peppers:

Step 1

Preheat your oven to broil. Place peppers on cookie sheet and place cookie sheet on second highest rack in oven. Let broil until top of pepper is black. Turn and repeat with all sides. I imagine this entire process took about 30-40 minutes, but please just keep checking and turning them. You will want the entire pepper to be black so you can peel back the burnt skin to reveal its roasted goodness inside. Discard tops of peppers and de-seed. Once cooled, peel off blackened skin. See how pretty? It makes your kitchen smell amazing too.

To Make the Crust:

Step 2

Proof first by mixing together yeast, sugar and water in large mixing bowl and let rest about 10 minutes, or until foamy. Add salt, and gradually add 2 1/2 cups flour until dough is manageable with hands.

Step 3

Roll out onto very well floured surface, and knead in flour as necessary so that dough is still soft but does not stick at all to your hands.
Roll dough into ball and place into oiled bowl in warm area. Let rise until doubled in size- about an hour.

Step 4

Once doubled, punch down and roll back into small ball. On well floured surface, roll pizza dough out into desired pizza shape and size. If dough becomes sticky, incorporate a little more flour and roll out again, flipping over dough to prevent sticking.

Step 5

Sprinkle lightly oiled cookie sheet or pizza stone with 2 tbsp corn meal. Place dough on top of cookie sheet or stone. I stretched mine to fit pan size and folded over edges to make a thicker crust on the outside. Using a fork, pierce holes into bottom of crust.

Step 6

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and let crust rest about 15 minutes.

Step 7

If using cookie sheet bake pizza crust in preheated oven for 5 minutes before adding toppings. If using a stone, top as usual and then bake.

Top Pizza:

Step 8

Spread hummus evenly on pizza crust as you would do with sauce. ( I needed 1 1/2 cups to thinly cover one 14″ round pizza). Top with remainder of toppings, brush oil on edges of crust and sprinkle with salt, nutritional yeast or vegan parmesan cheese.

Step 9

Bake at 425 °For about 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden brown. I removed my pizza from the oven at 20 minutes, brushed crust again with olive oil, and returned to oven for an additional 5 minutes. The crust was extra crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.

Vegan Peace