I’ve been on a bit of a creating in the kitchen hit lately which has been really nice, it’s been a while since I’ve been both motivated to get in the kitchen and not cutting for a competition so I’m actually able to eat the foods I make!
I’ve never tried making a Calzone before but a cafe in town does a delicious one, usually if I was to go there I’d get the chicken one but I’m completely off chicken at the moment (thanks pregnancy :/). The thought, sight and smell of it grosses me out. One of my friends took me out for lunch on my birthday earlier this year and we went to the cafe that does the Calzone so I thought I’d give their Chorizo one a go since chicken is currently off the menu. It wasn’t quite as good as the chicken but it was pretty darn tasty, so I thought I’d give it a go making my own Calzone at home. Mine ended up being a Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone with a few other bits and pieces that we had in the fridge, the beauty of the Calzone is that it’s essentially a folded up pizza so you can use up any leftovers you have sitting in the fridge and it will still come out pretty delicious.
To make this Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone you will need to do it in two stages. Stage one is making the Calzone dough, you can go one of two routes here – either use a bread maker or make it by hand. I decided to give it a go in our breadmaker as I’ve never tried making dough in it. The second step is to add all your fillings and bake the Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone. It’s a pretty easy recipe it just takes a little bit of time to get everything together.
Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone Recipe
Ingredients:
Base:
280ml Water
3 Tbs Olive Oil
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Tbs Sugar
3 Cups Flour
3 tsp Yeast
Fillings:
Pepperoni
Bacon
Spinach
Mushrooms
Cream Cheese
Tasty Cheese
Pasta Sauce
1 Egg (egg wash – optional)
Directions:
- Make the dough (I used our breadmaker – just put everything in order in the bread maker then let it do it’s thing).
- Roll out the dough into approx twice the size you want you calzone to be, I split our dough into three and made two large Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone and rolled out the third one into a pizza base size which I put in the freezer to use as a homemade pizza another day.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
- Chop your chosen fillings up into small bite size pieces – I used pepperoni, bacon, spinach, mushrooms which needed to be chopped.
- Spread the pasta sauce on one half of each Calzone.
- Top with chopped toppings spread around evenly but not quite too the edges, sprinkle with cheese and I added dollops of cream cheese over it to melt through it once cooked.
- Fold the top over the fillings and secure the edges together, pierce the top of the folded calzone with a knife so there are some gaps for the fillings to breath.
- Brush the top of each Cheesy Pepperoni Calzone with an egg mixed with a little bit of water (this helps to seal it and give it that glossy finish)
- Pop in the pre-heated oven for approx 25 minutes.