Do you folks remember the school kine lunch pizza? I sure did. The rectangular slices of pizza that had a super soft and bready crust with the pizza sauce, cubed pepperoni and cheese on top? Simplicity at its best! Well I am WELL out of school age but still think about this from time to time. Apparentely I am not the only one since there are many recipes out there. I went crazy and bought all the ingredients to try to make this at home. The recipe calls for a “pourable” crust, I’m intrigued. So how did it go?

Dry Ingredients! It didn’t call for sifting but I did it anyway.

Grease your pan and add a thin layer of cornmeal.

Yup, it’s a pourable crust. Here it is! Let it rest in the pan for 20 minutes before baking.

I made this recipe twice, the first time – the crust was not enough so for the second time, I made 1.5 of the crust recipe and I think that did the trick in terms of thickness of the crust. The first time it was much too thin and burned at the edges.

Spices for your homemade pizza sauce!

Oh my gosh, this pizza sauce recipe was so easy to make. Who knew?? It was mainly a can of tomato paste but you have to buy a bunch of seasonings including marjoram which I never used before. But boy was it easy to make…

I went a little hog wild with the toppings, I wanted pepperoni and italian sausage for the second round but they don’t sell the italian sauage little balls in stores! You know? Like the ones you get when you order pizza?? So I had to buy a tray of the italian sausage myself and then ball them and fry them up before using them. Ugh. But here is the meats and sauce on top of the pre-baked crust…

So. Much. Cheese. You use a lot of cheese for this recipe. You actually add a bit of cheese to the pizza sauce too and then the rest goes on top. How much did I use? Well the big two pack shredded mozzarella cheese from Sam’s, I used a full bag.

Voila! All baked and ready to eat. What was the verdict? Mixed. I didn’t care for it myself because the crust isn’t what I liked or remembered, wasn’t soft. This crust is kind of hard and super bready/doughy. The brothers, devoured it. My coworker, she liked it! Chan? I think he just thought it was just ok. So yeah, not much of a winner. Perhaps I could just buy the Pilsbury pizza crust in the can and just make the pizza sauce myself next time. I’m glad I tried it to finally simmer down my interest but I don’t think this recipe matches what I had in school.

School Lunch Pizza

Pourable Pizza Crust
Ingredients

• ½ teaspoon (7 g) Active Dry Yeast
• 1 ⅔ C (375 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
• 2 ½ C (320 g) All-purpose flour
• ¾ C (55 g) Instant, non-fat dry milk
• 2 T (25 g) Sugar
• ¼ t Salt
• 1 ½ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
• 1 ½ T (15 g) Cornmeal

Revised Crust Recipe (1.5 size measurements)

• 10.5 g Active Dry Yeast
• 2.4 C (562.5 ml) Warm Water (110 °F)
• 480 g All-purpose flour
• 82.5 g Instant, non-fat dry milk
• 35 g Sugar
• ½ t Salt
• 2 ¼ t Vegetable Oil (or more, enough to grease pan)
• 22.5 g Cornmeal

Directions

For best results, have all ingredients and utensils at room temperature.

1. Dissolve dry yeast in warm water. Let stand 4-5 minutes.
2. Place flour, milk, sugar, and salt in mixer bowl. Using a whip, blend on low speed for 4 minutes.
3. Add dissolved yeast and oil. Blend on medium speed for 10 minutes. Batter will be lumpy.
4. Coat sheet pan with oil and sprinkle cornmeal on pan evenly.
5. Pour batter into pan. Let stand for 20 minutes.
6. Prebake until crust is set: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 7 minutes.
7. Top each prebaked crust with desired topping or use Pizza With Ground Beef Topping recipe (see D-31), or Pizza With Cheese Topping recipe (see D-30).
8. Bake until heated through and cheese is melted: Conventional oven: 475 °F for 10-15 minutes. Convection oven: 425 °F for 5 minutes.
9. Portion by cutting each sheet pan 4×5 (20 pieces per pan).

Recipe Credit: Tasting History with Max Miller