Pumpkin Pizza Dough

I’ve been making pumpkin pizza crust for years. So long, in fact, that my favorite recipe has changed from this first time I posted it in 2010. If you make pizza often from home (like we do), this crust will help health it up a bit. It’s also way tastier than plain pizza crust. And you can use it for far more than just pies. Think garlic knots, rolls, calzones, etc.

All with this simple 5-ingredient recipe.

And don’t miss the secret below!

PUMPKIN PIZZA DOUGH

What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup warm water
• 2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour*
• 1-1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt

* These days I often do a mix of half bread flour, half whole wheat flour. It gives the crust a hearty texture. Sometimes I’ll roll in a little cornmeal before baking, too.

Method . . . 

1. In a small bowl, whisk together your warm water and active dry yeast. Let sit until frothy -- around 5-10 minutes. Pour in the maple syrup, olive oil, and pumpkin puree and mix again.
2. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups of flour with your salt. Create a small well in the center using your fist.
3. Pour your wet ingredients into the well and use a spatula to bring everything together. When you can no longer mix that way, use your hands to knead -- adding the final 1/2+ cup of flour until you form an elastic dough.
4. Return dough to the large bowl and drizzle with more olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap or a wet tea towel and let rise for 2 hours, until doubled in size.

RECIPES

Oven Baked Pizza:

This method is a little different from what you might be used to. Now, the recipe yields enough dough for two large pizzas. We bake ours on a pizza stone by preheating the oven (with stone inside) to 450-500 degrees F.  When we’re ready to bake, we take the stone out of the oven, place the crust on top and spread with sauce, sprinkle with cheese, etc. Before placing the pizza back in the oven, we turn it to broil and then broil the pizza on the middle rack for 7-10 minutes, until browned and bubbly.

Seriously, if you bake pizza at home and don’t have a stone, pick one up! (This one costs a little over $16) We’ve been using the same one since we got married in 2007. We do our pizza on it, of course, but also most of our baking of garlic knots, biscuits, sweet potato fries, etc. I feel like I could dedicate a whole post to the pizza stone, and maybe I will.

You can also use this dough in these recipes:

Pumpkin Garlic Knots
Pumpkin Pesto Rolls -- my personal favorite
Brie-Stuffed Pumpkin Pesto Rolls
Gourmet Grilled Pizza
Homemade DP Dough Calzone

THE SECRET

And here’s the coolest part about this recipe: You can basically substitute in ANY kind of puree in for the pumpkin. Trust me and try it. I’ve made Beet Pizza Dough, Pesto Pizza Dough, and even Garbanzo Pizza Dough -- all by using similar ratios + this recipe as a jumping off point.

Have you tried pumpkin pizza dough? 

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