Baking is life. Making dough is everything. The act of taking yeast, flour, salt and water and making something like pizza dough is nothing short of a fucking miracle. So when this whole covid crap kicked in, I though ‘you know what? I could get some more yeast and some bread flour; we’ll be set’.

Little did I know that the entirety of Canada has decided to work on their application videos for the Great British sodding Bake Off and there is not a scrap to be found. Anywhere. Shelves are BARE my friend, and I was left with no choice at that moment but to head to the back cooler and hang my head in shame as I pick up a roll of *gulp* Pillsbury pizza dough.

This shit is strange; the fact that you practically have to explode the package to get the stuff out should be a red flag but we’re going to press on and I will show you the mastery that it took to make a decent pizza out of this weird smelling, wet and spongy mix. Times are tough my friends.

What you need:

1 roll of Pillsbury pizza dough

Sauce: if you already have pizza sauce (or pasta sauce), use 3tbsp of that. If not:

3tbsp of Passata (strained tomatoes)

Salt/pepper

1tsp oregano

1/2tsp sugar

Toppings:

2 sausages of choice (I get pork and apple from the butchers)

1tbsp of ‘nduja (spicy pork sausage paste; sounds gross, tastes amazing).

6 thin slices of spicy salami (Soppressata is king)

incase you can’t tell, we’re going for the ‘add so much meat you can’t see the base’ method.

2 cups of grated Mozzarella

Drizzle of Balsamic vinegar

What to do:

If you look at the directions on the dough, they suggest to pre-bake and then bake again once topped for a short amount of time at a higher temperature. I prefer to keep the temperature the same and do the second bake for longer to ensure that is actually turns out like something that resembles pizza. With that being said, preheat the oven at 400f.

With an unreasonable amount of anxiety, get the dough out of the tube by popping it. Unroll it onto a lined baking tray and just stretch it out a bit more with your hands. Marvel in it’s weird smell and damp, spongy texture. If you have some semolina or cornmeal, toss some underneath the dough to help give a crispy base (I was not blessed as such). Throw it in the oven for about 5 minutes.

While the dough is in the oven, get a frying pan on medium heat and squeeze the sausage meat out of the casings and into the pan with a drizzle of olive oil. Add your ‘nduja and break it all part a little as it cooks on a medium-high heat. We want this to end up a little gnarly, a little crispy and a lot bloody delicious.

Once the dough has had its 5 minutes, take out of the oven and set aside for a moment. Mix together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl if you don’t already have a seasoned sauce at hand, taste to make sure you didn’t fuck it up and set that aside.

Once your sausage mixture has cooked and is starting to look gorgeously reddish from the ‘nduja, take off the heat. It’s time to top this mamma jamma.

Start with spooning the sauce on the base and then top with a generous and even layer of the mozzarella. Tear apart your salami and place that on the pizza next, then top with your sausage mixture. Finish with MORE cheese because we’re animals.

At this point I still wasn’t convinced that this would totally pass so I drizzled some balsamic over the pizza, taking extra care to add some to the bare dough around the edge. The balsamic I had was a golden pineapple (hello bougie) so it didn’t have a dark colour, but added a nice element of ‘huh that’s good’ to this pizza.

Bake that in the oven again until the base is browned around the edges and your cheese is gorgeously bubbling and sizzling with the fat from the meat (for me, it was around 15/20 minutes). Marvel at your work, you’ve done well my friend.

Slice, munch, enjoy.