Peaches & Ricotta Fruit Pizza

Cooking again on the pizza oven at IL Fiorello.  We hosted 12 guests for a corporate luncheon and served our homemade pizzas on the back patio. The day was sunny, warm, beautiful, and it is November by the way. I love being in California. I spoke to my friend in Boston this morning and it was snowing! Yikes!

Anyway, I digress, this pizza oven is marvelous. Cooks pizza in 2 to 3 minutes! Gets up to 450° to 500° C. (842°F to 932°F) in less than an hour. Thank you to our Chef Marvin Martin who found this wonderful oven for us to use here. Amazing. It is a wood burning oven with convection. Very efficient to use.

While we waited for the guests to have lunch, Lani, our support Chef, and I were bored. So out to the garden, harvested eggplants and zucchini, roasted them in the oven and made roasted soup for service in the tasting room. Pretty cool.

Although you may not have a pizza oven with this capability, pizzas can be made
on the backyard grill or in a regular oven.

Ingredients:

Pizza dough

• 2 cups “00” flour
• 2 cups AP “all purpose” flour
• 2 packages instant rise yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil mild
• Warm water at 160°F about a cup (more if needed to make the dough)

Ricotta mixture

• 1 quart ricotta cheese
• 4 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup heavy cream (optional)

Fruit

• Fresh, ripe peaches (or use pears, or apples)

Finish

• IL Fiorello white peach balsamic vinegar reduction

Method:

Dough

• Place the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and olive oil into the bowl of a mixer.
• With the mixer running, add the warm water slowly until the dough comes together and is just slightly firm.
• Roll into a ball and place in a stainless steel bowl cover with a light coating of oil and then clear kitchen wrap.
• Put in a warm draft free place to rise for about 1-2 hours until at least doubled.
• Punch down measure out each individual pizza amounts and let rise again.

Ricotta mixture

• Place the quart of ricotta cheese, the powdered sugar and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl and whip until almost doubled in size.
• Sometimes adding ½ cup heavy cream makes it whip more easily. Do this at the last minute to maintain the fluffiness of the cheese.

Fruit

• Halve the peaches, remove the stone and slice the peaches into eights

Assembly

• Roll out the pizza dough into a personal size dessert pizza or larger if you are inclined to share.
• Spread the fluffy ricotta over the pizza.
• Carefully place the sliced peaches in concentric circles to almost cover the ricotta

Bake

• Place the pizza into the pizza oven for about 2 minutes, more or less depending on the heat of the over. Ours cooks well at 450° to 500° C (842°F to 932°F).
• Drizzle on the White Peach Balsamic Vinegar Reduction after cooking.

 ©IL Fiorello Olive Oil Company