Garlic bread pizza and calzone dough! This dough recipe is very versatile. Use it as a pizza crust, for calzones, or make garlic breadsticks! It’s so delicious… Buttery with the perfect amount of garlic and a touch of oregano. It tastes exactly like garlic bread. It’s chewy without being tough and it crisps up perfectly without getting hard! The perfect balance of chewy, soft, and crispy and it holds up well to sauces, it doesn’t get soggy.
The dough recipe calls for a couple of interesting ingredients. One thing to note is that it calls for mostly whole wheat flour. This is for nutrition reasons, but also for flavor reasons. I think it gives a deeper flavor. Because it calls for mostly whole wheat flour I add a little bit of instant mashed potato flakes. The starch in the potato helps add softness and improve gluten development in whole wheat flour. It’s a natural dough enhancer. You can read about more natural dough enhancers here: https://bit.ly/33iGFT5 This recipe also calls for butter extract! You should be able to find it near the vanilla extract in the baking aisle. Get naturally flavored butter extract if you can, artificial butter flavoring can taste a bit odd. The butter extract gives it an extra buttery flavor!
This recipe doesn’t really have a proofing step for the yeast at the beginning. So, only use relatively fresh yeast for this recipe. Don’t use the old yeast in the back of your cabinet that may or may not be alive. Because you won’t be able to tell for a few hours and you’ll waste a batch of dough if the yeast turns out to be dead.
In addition to the recipe for the dough recipe (which is the real star here), I’m going to include my recipe for white pizza calzone filling. But of course, you can use any fillings you like! The white pizza one is just my personal favorite.
After steps 1-11 follow one of these additional instructions to make one of either calzones, pizza, or breadsticks using the garlic bread pizza and calzone dough!
To make calzones:
- Preheat your oven to 425°F
- Cut the dough into 12 even pieces.
- Roll out each dough piece into a 1/4 inch thick circle
- Add fillings to one half of the dough circle
- Carefully, stretch and fold the other half of the dough over.
- Press the edges closed with a fork.
- Carefully transfer to a greased sheet pan.
- Repeat
- Brush the top of each calzone with the butter-garlic topping and sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese.
- Bake for about 30 minutes.
To make breadsticks:
For visual instructions check out this video:
- Cut the dough into 12 even pieces.
- Roll each piece of dough into a breadstick shape using your hands.
- Place onto a greased sheet pan.
- Repeat
- Cover the pan with a damp cloth and let rise at room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 450°F
- Brush the tops of the dough with the butter-garlic topping and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
- When the oven comes to temperature, place the breadsticks in the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown.
To make pizza crust:
- Preheat your oven to 450°F
- Grease a metal pizza pan or a large sheet pan and oil your hands generously.
- Place the dough in the middle on the pan and press and stretch it out towards the edges of the pan as evenly as you can. If you like a thick crust, stop when its a 1/4 inch thick. If you like a thin crust press it out further until its an 1/8 of an inch thick.
- Brush the entire top of the dough with the butter-garlic topping.
- Top with any sauces, cheese, and topping you want.
- Sprinkle any exposed crust with parmesan.
- Bake for about 30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
- Slice!
Looking for something to serve your breadsticks with? Or maybe, you like meatballs in your calzones? Try my easy baked meatball recipe! https://bit.ly/30luUZY
Garlic Bread Pizza and Calzone Dough
Ingredients
Garlic Bread Flavored Pizza and Calzone Dough
Garlic Bread Flavored Pizza and Calzone Dough Topping
White Pizza Calzone Filling
Instructions
Garlic Bread Flavored Pizza and Calzone Dough
-
Add 2 2/3 cups of filtered (or bottled) cool or room temperature water to a large bowl.
-
Sprinkle in the yeast.
-
Add the potato flakes, salt, olive oil, garlic powder, oregano, and butter extract to the water and stir.
-
Add all of the flour and mix until it starts to come together.
-
Start mixing and then kneading the dough with your hands. Knead for a couple of minutes in the bowl. You'll have a shaggy somewhat sticky dough, don't worry it'll look more like pizza dough later!
-
Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator to rise for between 18 and 24 hours. About halfway through the rise time punch down the dough and knead it for a minute or two in the bowl.
-
After at least 18 hours remove it from the fridge. It should have at least doubled in size.
-
Punch down the dough and stretch and fold the dough over several times in the bowl.
-
Now it looks like beautiful smooth pizza dough!
-
Let the dough rest at room temperature for about an hour. While it rests you can begin prepping any calzone filling or pizza topping you want to use.
-
After the dough rests, peel and finely mince two cloves of garlic.
-
Melt the butter, add the minced garlic and garlic powder and mix. Set aside.
-
Follow the appropriate instructions in the article at the top of this page. To make breadsticks, follow the breadstick instructions, etc.
White Pizza Calzone Filling
-
Add frozen spinach to a large bowl.
-
On high heat brown the mushrooms in about a tsp of olive oil. While the brown dice the onion. Add mushrooms to the spinach bowl.
-
Add the butter, diced onion, and sausage to the pan and brown on high heat. Make sure to break up the sausage well. Turn off the heat. Add the sausage mixture to the bowl.
-
Add the salt and basil to the bowl and mix. Set aside to cool until its just warm.
-
Add about half a 15 oz jar of alfredo sauce to the bowl.
-
Roughly chop the provolone and, if not using pearls, the mozzarella. Add to the bowl.
-
Chop two medium tomatoes and add to the bowl. Mix until everything is evenly distributed.
-
Use in calzones! For instructions on making calzones, see the article at the top of the page.
