Sunday Brunch

Sunday Brunch: One Pizza with Extra Cheese and...Eggs?

April 3, 2011

Pizza for breakfast?  Why not?  Sure you probably had/will have pizza for breakfast at least once a week in college, but with Chef Mickey's recipe, you can have a delicious, new, but still familiar pizza that is essentially breakfast.  For this Sunday Brunch, we're serving up a true brunch item: Chef Mickey's Breakfast Pizza.  Is it pizza? Is it breakfast?  It's both!  The recipe is made from eggs, cheese, and a pizza crust, so it's essentially a cheese omelet on pizza crust, making it a very easy, very delicious recipe.

First, as always get your mis en place ready.  It's pretty basic this time:

One 12-inch precooked pizza shell

' cup coarsely grated mozzarella cheese

' cup coarsely grated provolone cheese

1 cup coarsely grated cheddar cheese

(OR 2 cups of any cheese blend you desire)

' cup heavy cream*

' tsp salt, or to taste

Pinch of freshly ground black pepper, or to taste

Optional: diced fresh vegetables and other toppings: tomatoes, spinach, broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, pepperoni, bacon, etc.

*Brent Dodge's Breakfast Pizza:  For those of you who watched Episode 83 of the W.E.D.nesday Show, you know that Brent accidentally used sour cream instead of heavy cream with successful results.  I have chosen to try both.  I'll be discussing the results after we make it!

I thought we had all the cheeses Chef Mickey suggests, but I lacked provolone so I substituted with grated parmesan instead.  If you want to make your own cheese blend, I suggest balancing between soft cheeses and hard cheeses.  Soft cheeses are those like mozzarella while hard are those like parmesan.

I was a bit bored with the recipe (sorry, Mickey!), so I decided to add some color, flavor, and nutrients in the form of fresh vegetables and greens with some chiffonade spinach (quick chop the greens like shredded lettuce) and diced tomato.

1.       Preheat your oven to 375F.  Place the pizza crust on a baking sheet.

2.       In a medium bowl, blend the cheeses.

3.       In a small bowl, with a fork, beat together the eggs and the heavy cream, and season with the salt and the pepper.  Add to the cheese mixture.

Heavy cream on left, sour cream on right.  For the Brent Dodge experiment, I used 1/8 cup heavy cream and 1/8 cup sour cream each with one egg and 1 cup of the blended cheese mixture. 

4.        Immediately, to avoid clumping, transfer the cheese mixture to the pizza shell.  Note: you do need to mix fast and add the mixture to the crust because the drier grated cheese absorb the moisture from the eggs and cream like a sponge.  If you let it sit too long, it will be a bit difficult to spread it on the crust.

5.       Add the additional toppings before baking.  Have fun with the garnishes as seen below:

6.       Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cheese mixture is set and is beginning to brown.  Caution: if you added fresh veggies such as tomatoes, you may need to bake a little longer.  The water from the tomatoes increased the moisture content of the recipe, so a longer bake time is needed to evaporate some of the moisture and allow the egg and cheese mixture to set.  It took me about 15 minutes to bake.

7.       Serve hot, cut into wedges.

This pizza was quite a delicious breakfast treat.  The egg and cheese in this recipe is perfectly balanced, with neither overpowering the other, making it great for those who aren't really fans of eggs.  There was a bit of a difference between the heavy cream and sour cream as they are essentially the same product, though I noticed the pizza with the heavy cream was smoother, creamier and leant more to an eggy flavor.  The sour cream pizza had a fuller texture and flavor, with the tartness of the sour cream rounding out the flavor with the creamy cheeses.  I recommend using sour cream for those who aren't a big fan of eggs as the heavy cream version definitely tasted more like eggs.  Either way, both were delicious and the experiment was an interesting way to see the effects of substituting ingredients.

Chef Mickey's Breakfast Pizza is part of this balanced breakfast!

The great thing about Chef Mickey's recipe is that not only is it easy to do and delicious to eat, it's very versatile and can be used as a base for hundreds of combinations of flavors and ingredients.  Experiment at home with your favorite ingredients and see what you get.  Want a sweeter, more breakfasty pizza?  Try using cream cheese and sweet spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, or ground cloves.  For the meat lovers in the family, try topping with breakfast meats such as bacon (regular, turkey, Canadian) or breakfast sausage.  For a healthier breakfast, add lots of colorful vegetables, diced, sliced, chopped, however you like.  The more (naturally) colorful your meal, the healthier it will be.  Bon a petit! 

Return to Sunday Brunch