Solar System Pizza
We celebrated the start of our school year with a homemade Solar System Pizza! It was a delightful and delicious surprise for my daughter, and she absolutely loved it!
Here is the step-by-step process. You will need:
- Pizza dough
- Small purple cabbage
- Shredded cheese for topping
- A slice of provolone cheese (or the cheese you used for topping) to create two planets
- Several slices of cheddar cheese for crafting planets
- Slices of Salami, pepperoni, or ham for both crafting planets and toppings
- A leaf of spinach
- A grape tomato
Step 1: Prepare the pizza dough. Typically, I prefer making pizza dough from scratch, and I follow “The Best Pizza Dough Recipe.”
Step 2: Bring water to a boil in a small pot, and then place a cabbage leaf in the boiling water. Boil for around 10-15 minutes, until the color transforms to purple-blue. Transfer the cabbage leaf to a plate to cool down. You can find images showcasing the cabbage leaf’s transformation before and after boiling for 12 minutes.
Step 3: Prepare your toppings and cut out two planets. I used measuring cups and circular measuring spoons for this process.
Use a 1/2 cup as a guide to cut out a circle for the sun, and a tablespoon (Tbsp) to cut out a circle for Venus, both from slices of salami. I also diced about 4 slices of salami for toppings.
Step 4: Brush olive oil and tomato sauce on the pizza dough, then sprinkle basil and oregano. Next, add the chopped salami and shredded cheese.
Position a large salami circle in the center of your pizza; this will represent the sun. Place a smaller circle next to it to symbolize Venus.
Step 5: Bake the pizza according to the instructions provided in the recipe or on the packaging if using store-bought pizza crust.
Step 6: While the pizza bakes, you can prepare the following:
- Sun: Craft triangle rays from slices of cheddar cheese.
- Mercury and Pluto: Use 3/4 and 1/2 teaspoons (tsp) as templates to fashion both planets from a slice of cheddar cheese.
- Earth, Uranus, and Neptune: Employ measuring spoons to cut these three planets from the soft cabbage leaf. Place fragments of green spinach leaf atop the Earth.
- Mars: Slice a grape tomato.
- Jupiter and Saturn: Use a tablespoon to carve out both planets from slices of provolone cheese. From cheddar cheese, create a ring for Saturn and lines for Jupiter.
Step 7: Retrieve the pizza from the oven and allow it to cool slightly. If it’s too hot, the cheese pieces may melt and lose their shape. Arrange the pieces prepared in Step 6 on top of your pizza.
Your Solar System Pizza is now ready!
Picture of reheated leftover pizza:
You can use the leftover purple cabbage and blue water to make Magical Color Changing Unicorn Noodles.