Pizza Bagels

Ok.  Here’s the deal.  I know cauliflower isn’t pizza.  I do. If you’ve ever tried the cauliflower crust pizzas that are floating around the web with so much promise of cheesy deliciousness and was met with a bit of “yea, this is diet pizza” disappointment then you know that cauliflower isn’t bread or pizza crust.   Don’t be mad at the cauliflower though.  It’s just a harmless veggie.   There were good parts to those recipes.  Some of my cauliflower bread sticks and crusts did taste good.  So how to make the whole thing taste good?  

It’s all in the recipe and the way it’s prepared.  I find the more the outside is browned the better it will taste. This is the concept behind those brownie pans with dividers that allow you to have all your pieces be an edge piece.  I also find that the more simple a recipe is the more you will want to make it.  So the least amount of steps is always better.  Unless it’s desserts and in that case I will jump through rings of fire to get it done! But I digress.  So I want my servings to all have that edge piece taste.  This is why the donut pan is crucial.  However, if you don’t have one, don’t fret.  A mini muffin pan will produce identical results and is another one of my favorite ways to prepare this.  A donut pan creates a lot of edges though on the inside and the outside.  It’s just so perfect!  

The other thing is that as much as I love “health” and “eating good” and all that stuff I don’t want pizza flavor mixed with cauliflower.  Almost never do I have a craving for that.  So there needs to be much hiding of the flavor.  That’s why you’ll see fennel being added to the recipe in most of the ones out there.  Fennel is the same flavor that you will find in Italian sausage.  It’s really good stuff.  I find that it doesn’t help enough though.  So we’ll add pepperoni, a lot of it, and fresh diced tomato.  Oh, and double up the egg.  

So I watched that video that’s around the internet about ricing cauliflower with water and then you just strain it out.  Easy riced cauliflower and no mess! Well that’s not quite what my processor did.  I ended up with a raw puree.  Hey, you know what? That’s even better! However you can do this with regular riced cauliflower and there will be none of that cauliflower texture once it’s done, I promise.

I pushed on my raw puree into a strainer to get as much water out as possible.  If you rice this like a normal person then you won’t have to do that! It will be raw and dry already.

I like to wash off the diced tomato so that the end result won’t have too much moisture and also so the bits of tomato can provide a nice soft bite of tomatoey-ness. (It’s a word.)

It’s a very wet mix even after you add in the cheese.  You’ll want to spoon it into your donut pan carefully. If you overfill a bit and it cooks over the top of where the donut hole is do not worry.  You can scrape it aside after it’s done cooking.  Try not to overfill it though to avoid this.

These are too full! Haha! But like I said, all you have to do is take your spoon and scrape it off the hole part on top which is exactly what I did before I took this picture below.

Loosen the edges and let cool for a good 10 mins.  Then you can take parchment paper and lay over top, flip your pan over and let them fall out.  These came out a tad darker than I like.  I originally cooked these at 375 degrees for 20-25 mins but that was not long enough. I have adjusted the temperature to a higher heat and a longer cook time to get the more golden look that you see in the mini muffins.  When they are dark golden brown but not burnt then it’s ready!