Loaded Potato Pizza

I love baked potatoes. I love pizza. It stands to reason that I would absolutely adore loaded potato pizza. I got the recipe from Vicarious Foodie.

Potato Pizza
Crust:
3 cup bread flour (I used all purpose flour because that's all I have)
1 tsp salt
1 package active dry yeast
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup warm water
Toppings:
12 red potatoes (or the equivalent amount - not number - of other), peeled and chopped
7 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
4 tbsp butter
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
salt and pepper

6 strips of bacon
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp onion salt

Prepare the dough first. Combine flour, salt, and yeast in a large bowl. Mix in water and oil until dough forms a ball. Cover and let rise, at least 30 minutes, while preparing the rest of the ingredients. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Boil the potatoes and garlic in a large pot. Don't put too much water and slightly salt the potatoes. Boil for about 20 minutes or until they potatoes are thoroughly cooked and easily mashable.

While the potatoes are cooking away, fry the bacon until just crisp. As the end result needs to be little pieces of bacon, you can cut the bacon before or after it's cooked. I think it's easier to cut the bacon before, and it cooks more evenly. To precut the bacon, keep the slices together like they are in the package, and just cut thin strips across the gathered bacon. After the bacon is cooked, place it on paper towels to let it drain. Cook the onions in the bacon fat for about 10 minutes or until they're slightly caramelized. Remove the onions from the pan and also let them drain.

Once your potatoes are well cooked, drain them, return them to the pot, and mash them. Add the butter, cream, salt, and pepper. The original recipe says to whip them with a hand-held mixer until they are smooth and creamy, but I didn't do that. Wholly creamy potatoes freak me out a bit.

Roll out the pizza dough. Work it to fit the shape of your pan. Original recipe uses a 12 inch round. I used a 9x11 rectangle. Fit the dough onto your pan. Sprinkle the dough with the onions and then spread the potatoes on top. I found it to work well if I put big dollops of potatoes over the pizza, then spread them out. Don't forget to leave a 1 inch border for your crust. Top with onion powder, cheeses, crumbled bacon. and chives. Salt and pepper to taste.

Bake in preheated over for about 15 minutes. Mine took a lot longer, which is weird.


So my main problem with this was that it didn't feel like a combined dish. I felt like I was eating mashed potatoes on top of bread; there wasn't any cohesion. I think some sort of sour cream "pizza" sauce would have helped to bring the two aspects together.