grape pizza

I know you’ve seen pizza served for dessert. A lot of sweet stuff piled on like chocolate or nutella.

This one’s a little different. This involves fruit, and, yes, sugar, but then we sneak in the savory with rosemary & olive oil. Oh yeah. That’s right.

I first discovered sweet grape pizza from a Tuscan recipe for schiacciata di’uva (pizza with grapes). In that recipe the pizza was folded in half with grapes on the inside and on top.

I’ve since morphed the recipe to be a flat open pizza.

grape pizza assembly

making grape pizza in my cooking class

And now I’ve added brown sugar with the white sugar, prefer more abundant rosemary, and bake it until it’s nice and deep golden brown. The edges get a crispy snap and the sweetness surprises your tastebuds…making them run back for more.

grape pizza cut into pieces

To begin, you can buy pizza dough in the supermarket. This recipe is for 1 pound. But I’m also including here my Dad’s recipe for pizza dough, which my family is realizing is really my Aunt Mary’s recipe for pizza dough. Aunt Mary wasn’t my real aunt, but she’s still Aunt Mary to me. She, & her husband (Uncle John), lived upstairs from us in Brooklyn. She was a mentor in the kitchen for my mom. A sweetheart and a Sicilian.

When the summer gets in full swing try this with thin slices of peaches. In winter it works with thin slices of apple. I’ve used nectarines, too, and I just envisioned sweet red plums. Gotta try that one!

Grape Sweet Pizza w Brown Sugar & Rosemary

1 lb. pizza dough (store-bought or fresh-made)

3 cups seedless red grapes, sliced in half

1/2  cup sugar (or more)

1/2 brown sugar

8-10 fresh rosemary sprigs, Leaves stripped off, stems discarded

a few healthy drizzles of olive oil

Preheat oven to F. 400 degrees

Make sure dough is at room temperature. Press out dough into a thin flat disc or oblong shape. Alternatively, cut dough in half and make 2 smaller pizzas. Lay thin dough on a lightly-oiled parchment-lined baking sheet.

Place the grapes, cut side down, on top of the dough, pressing them in lightly. Leave a narrow border of dough on the outside edge. Sprinkle with sugar. Toss on rosemary. Drizzle olive oil.

Bake about 20 minutes until crusty and golden. Cut into squares to serve.

Dad’s (& Aunt Mary’s) Pizza Dough

For the dough:

5 cups flour (all-purpose)

2 teaspoons salt

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (1 package/envelope)

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 egg

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or you can do this by hand) mix together the flour and salt. In a medium bowl or large measuring cup combine 1 1/2 cups warm water (tepid, not too hot, not too cool) with the yeast and the sugar. In a small bowl or cup mix the egg with the olive oil.

Make a well in the center of the flour. When the yeast has “bloomed” (becomes puffy) pour the yeast water in the well and pour the egg/olive oil mixture in the well. Gently stir the flour and wet ingredients to roughly combine. Then mix on a slow speed with the dough hook for about 5 minutes until silky.

Take out dough hook. Smooth a thin film of olive oil over top of dough. Flip dough so all sides have a thin film of olive oil. Cover top of bowl with a clean dry kitchen towel and place in a draft-free place to rise. Let rise about 2 hours. It should double in size.

Scoop dough out onto a work surface and cut into 6-8 pieces (use a bench scraper or knife). Roll each piece gently into a ball and wrap each ball in a pam-sprayed or lightly oiled piece of plastic. Don’t wrap too tight since dough will rise again in plastic. Let rise about an hour more.

Unwrap dough and gently press into the shape you want. You can also stretch dough more by gently holding down the center and gently pulling the edges out.