Unlock The Menu Potential of Dessert Pizzas

KEY INSIGHTS

• People often remember the first and last things they eat when dining out, so a fantastic dessert will help encourage repeat visits. 
• There are so many toppings to choose from for dessert pizzas that the only real limit is that of your imagination. 
• You don’t even need to make a special base. Your standard pizza dough, being neutral in flavour, will work fine when topped with the sweet flavours of your choosing.

Dessert pizzas are not as new as you might think. In fact pizzas piled with honey, nuts and fruits were being served in Italy centuries ago!

If you can sell your customer an entrée and main, then finish off with a beautiful dessert pizza, you’re making their patronage more valuable to your business. Also, people often remember the first and last things they eat when dining out, so a fantastic dessert will help encourage repeat visits.

A great combination of flavours, attractively presented, atop a tasty light pizza base is also an easy way to set your menu apart from the competition. Because, while savoury pizzas come in standard recipes like Calabrese, Four Seasons, Cappricciosa and Supreme, dessert pizzas are more about using your imagination to come up with something distinctive and different.

There are so many toppings to choose from for dessert pizzas that the only real limit is that of your imagination. From fresh or canned fruit, to ice cream, sweet sauces and coulis, spreads like Nutella, drizzled honey or golden syrup, there’s plenty of scope for experimentation.

You don’t even need to make a special base. Your standard pizza dough, being neutral in flavour, will work fine when topped with the sweet flavours of your choosing.

Whether to serve dessert pizzas hot or cold depends on the toppings. Cooking the base first, then adding toppings and putting the pizza back into the oven to finish it off with an ingredient like hot, fresh melted chocolate can often produce a fantastic result.

Of course you need to be careful not to over-caramelise sweet toppings, and make sure they’re not served so hot that they’ll burn your customer’s mouth! It is often the case that a regular pizza oven might be too hot to accommodate a dessert pizza, in which case you may need to make minor modifications to your dough base — such as brushing it with melted butter or a light dusting of sugar. Sweet spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg can also add flavour.

For some terrific dessert pizza flavours, try toppings like caramelised bananas, fresh or frozen berries, or chocolate drizzled with the liqueur of your choice for the adult palate.

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