Pizza Muffins

 One of the unexpected joys of blogging has been my daughters' reaction to the blog.  Not only do they love to read it, but they are constantly making suggestions for new posts.  "You should totally blog that, mom," has become a common refrain around here.

Last week the younger of the two announced that she had an idea for a recipe: pizza muffins, pizza baked in a muffin tin.  I told her we'd give it a try.  "But will you blog it?" she asked.

Little girl, this one's for you!

Like many of the things I make around here, there was a lot of winging it with this recipe.  (I often picture more experienced cooks reading this blog and shaking their heads in disbelief.)

I started with the prepared pizza dough from Fresh and Easy.  Trader Joe's also has wonderful pre-made dough and theirs comes in whole wheat too.  (Apologies to my mother who made us pizza from scratch, including homemade dough, every single Saturday night of my childhood.)

So after spraying my muffin tins with cooking spray, my daughter and I made twelve balls of dough.  We rolled each one flat and put them in the tins.  They kind of shrunk up and pulled away from the sides but that didn't matter in the end.

Wow these muffin tins look grungy.   I swear I wash them.  Let's just call them "well-loved."   

You can top/fill your muffins with whatever ingredients you'd like.  The first time I made them I actually used ground up meatloaf as a filling and it was wonderful.  (And yes, that's the same meatloaf recipe found here.)  This time we used pepperoni, olives, sauce and mozzarella.

We had different combos in each cup.  We put in the meat first (for those that had meat), then the olives...


...and then the sauce.

Finally we topped the whole thing with cheese and popped them in the oven.

Not only did my daughter come up with the idea, she also helped clean up while the muffins were in the oven.  Love that kid.

They emerged looking beautiful (despite the grungy muffin tins ;)

And they were as tasty as they were pretty.  If I make them again I might use a little less dough and a little more filling.  Beyond that, I'd say they were perfect.

Many thanks to my little chef for the inspiration!

Update:  For those who asked.  I simply used the baking directions (time and temp) that came with the dough.  I did not pre-bake the dough and it seemed to work out just fine.

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