Homemade Nutella Pizza for Dessert (Pizza Steel Recipe)
Pizza night isn't complete without dessert, and your next pizza night needs this homemade Nutella pizza. To keep the pizza dough crisp-yet-chewy like you expect from a good homemade pizza, it bakes plain on a Baking Steel topped with ice cubes for moisture. And the heat from the freshly baked pizza crust melts the rich Nutella, making it easy to spread. Just like a savory pizza, you can have a lot of fun personalizing this Nutella dessert pizza with your favorite dessert toppings!
Ingredients
- 200-220 gram overnight thin crust pizza dough ball
- ⅛ cup all-purpose flour (for dusting)
- 1½ teaspoons semolina flour (for dusting the pizza peel)
- 2-3 ice cubes (standard cube size)
- 80-90 grams nutella (or any chocolate hazelnut spread)
- 2 teaspoons powdered sugar
- toppings (thinly sliced fruit, candy, crumbled cookies, dried fruit or nuts, shredded coconut, mini marshmallows, peanut butter, caramel sauce, whipped cream, sprinkles, etc.)
Instructions
- Preheat oven with baking steel at 500°F for 1 hour prior to baking. Remove pizza dough from fridge and allow to come to room temperature at least 60-90 minutes prior to stretching.
- Measure the Nutella. Arrange a piping bag in a tall cup on top of a kitchen scale to measure the Nutella and set it aside. If your Nutella is refrigerated, microwave it in bursts, stirring in between until it loosens up before measuring.
- Lightly dust a wooden pizza peel with semolina flour.
- Hand stretch pizza dough. Use plenty of flour as you stretch the pizza dough until it is 10" across and not too thin in the center. (See: How to Hand Stretch Pizza Dough.) Transfer the pizza dough to the pizza peel and gently flatten the outer edge of the crust with your fingers.
- Ice cubes. Place 2-3 ice cubes on the surface of the pizza dough, spread out so they aren't too close to each other.
- Shimmy. Give the pizza dough a shimmy on the wooden pizza peel to make sure that no parts of the crust have stuck. Dust additional flour underneath any stuck spots if needed.
- Launch. Open the oven and line up the tip of the pizza peel with the back of the baking steel. Tilt it at an angle (20° or so) and give it a quick thrust to help the pizza begin sliding off. As the pizza slides, pull the peel straight back, keeping the tip of the peel on the steel, depositing the pizza on to the hot surface to begin cooking.
- Bake. Bake the pizza for 2 minutes, then remove it from the oven with the pizza peel and carefully tilt it over the sink to remove the ice cubes and drain any water off the top. Return to the baking steel and bake 2-3 minutes more to dry off the surface of the dough. Finish by broiling for 20-30 seconds, then remove from the oven.
- Nutella. Pipe the Nutella in a large spiral on the surface of the pizza, then spread it out in an even layer. The heat from the pizza dough will help melt the Nutella and make it easier to spread.
- Toppings & serving. Add any toppings you want, then finish with a light dusting of powdered sugar. Slice and serve immediately!
RECIPE NOTES
- If your ice cubes are small, you may need additional ice cubes. If they melt all the way during baking, you can skip the step of draining them into the sink.
- If hand stretching pizza dough isn't for you, a rolling pin will work here too. You'll still want to pre-shape the dough in advance to get a nice circle shape that rolls out evenly.
- If using store-bought pizza dough, divide and pre-shape it into dough balls and refrigerate at least 3 hours before use. You'll only need to give it about 30 minutes at room temperature before stretching it. It tends to bake up thicker, so it may need more time on the baking steel before broiling.
- If you have trouble using the semolina flour method for sliding the pizza off the peel, you can use a sheet of parchment paper instead.
- Note: Broilers are VERY hot and their power can vary widely from oven to oven. With no sauce to protect the surface of the dough, it can brown very quickly. Check on the pizza dough every 15 seconds to make sure it doesn't burn!
- Nutella pizza is best eaten same day, pretty much immediately after making it, especially if you have any fresh toppings on it (strawberries, etc).