A couple of weeks ago, I was in the climbing gym listening to a food podcast and learned so many interesting things Pizza rolls That I started craving them intensely and had to make a recipe for them. I wanted simple ingredients, including real mozzarella, a tangy tomato sauce, and high-quality herbs and peppers. For the dough, I went with half Yecora Rojo whole wheat flour and half organic bread flour (I expect similar results if you use all organic Yecora Rojo high extraction flour). For comparison, here is the list of ingredients for pizza rolls in the store:
I made a single batch (22 rolls) with instant yeast and a double batch with sourdough and have included recipes for both below. These pizza rolls are baked rather than fried, and the dough is more like a real pizza crust than an egg roll shell, but they’re still decadently delicious.
Here’s some of the pizza history I learned The sporkful podcasts and wikipedia. Pizza rolls entered the American processed food scene in the late 1960s. They were produced by a food entrepreneur, Jeno Paulucciwhich originally made its name in canned and frozen Chinese-American foods. In the 1960s, he decided to explore more filling ideas for egg roll wrappers and an employee, Beatrice Ojakangashe invented 50 different fillings, including a pizza filling. In 1968, pizza cloths were launched and became quite popular. In 1985 Paulucci sold the Jeno’s brand of pizza rolls to Pillsbury, and in 1993 they were rebranded as Totino’s, the name they are still sold today. For this and many other accomplishments, Ojakangas has been called the Scandanavian Child Julia, and his book “The Great Scandanavian Baking Book” is in the James Beard Foundation Hall of Fame.
Photo gallery of homemade pizza rolls
Something as delicious as pizza rolls, aka Mini Calzones, doesn’t have to be an ultra-processed food. Here’s a recipe for homemade pizza rolls that is absolutely decadent through simple ingredients and freshness. The dough is half wheat flour with yeast or sourdough options and you choose the cheese, herb-filled sauce and peppers of your choice. Double the recipe and freeze half of what you cook for convenient snacking in the future.
Total time
1 hour, 14 minutes
Ingredients
Yeast dough
- 130 grams of YECORA ROJO wholemeal flour (1 cup)
- 130 grams of bread flour (1 cup)
- 180 grams of water (3/4 cup)
- 14 grams of olive oil (1 tablespoon)
- 5 grams of salt (1 teaspoon)
- 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic (2 grams) or 1/4 teaspoon powder (0.75 grams)
- 3 grams of instant yeast (1 teaspoon)
Naturally leavened dough
- 130 grams of YECORA ROJO wholemeal flour (1 cup)
- 100 grams bread flour (cumulative 3/4 cup)
- 150 grams of water (just 2/3 cup)
- 14 grams of olive oil (1 tablespoon)
- 5 grams of salt (1 teaspoon)
- 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic (2 grams) or 1/4 teaspoon powder (0.75 grams)
- 60 gram sourdough starter (~1/4 cup
Filling
- 240 grams marinara sauce, homemade or store (~1 cup) *See notes
- 140 grams grated mozzarella (1 1/4 cups)
- 50 grams bell peppers, chopped (about 8 slices of 3″ diameter peppers)
Toppings
- 1-2 tablespoons oil, butter or beaten egg to brush the rolls before cooking
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1-2 tablespoons grated parmesan or pecorino romano
Instructions
- With 1 teaspoon instant yeast and temperatures in the mid 70s, this recipe took about 5 hours from mixing to cooling rack. Doubling the yeast to 2 teaspoons and/or increasing the temperature would reduce this time to about 3 hours. For the sourdough version, the recipe takes approximately 9 hours from mixing to the cooling rack. Higher or warmer starter temperatures would make the sourdough process faster. The dough can also be refrigerated near the end of the first rise and assembled the next day. Assembling a single batch takes approximately 30 minutes.
Dough
- Mix the dough ingredients in a bowl until completely combined. Transfer to a clean, lightly floured work surface and knead for about a minute or until the dough is smooth. If the dough is too wet to knead by hand, add flour a tablespoon at a time.
- Place the dough in the bowl or straight-sided container, cover and let it rise until it has expanded by about 75% (doubling is 100%).
- While the dough is rising, prepare the filling and 1-2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Roll Assembly (see photo gallery) and cooking
- Preheat oven to 425°F.
- Transfer the fermented dough to a lightly floured workspace. With a rolling pin, roll the dough to about 1/8 inch thick. Try not to use excess flour as it will make the dough more difficult to seal after folding it over the filling.
- Trim the edges of the dough until you have defined the rectangle. With the cut scraps, form a ball of dough. Cover it or place it in a sealed container so it does not dry out. Ideally the gluten will have relaxed by the time you are ready to roll it out and assemble the final pizza rolls. You can also make this dough into a full-sized calzone or other shapes.
- Cut the rectangle of plant dough into long strips about 4 inches wide. You can use a bench knife, pizza cutter, or paring knife.
- Place the spoonful of the filling (about 1 tablespoon amount) along the length of each pastry strip, not in the center, rather on one side because you will be folding the other side over the filling. Leave about an inch between each pile of filling.
- If the dough is dry, brush a little water around the perimeter of the dough and between the filling piles. Otherwise proceed with folding the dough in half beyond the filling. Using your fingertips, press the perimeter of the dough to bring the edges together. Try to really bring the two layers of dough together so that they are sealed together.
- With the length of your finger, press the dough between each pile of filling. If the dough balloons outward, poke it with a toothpick or the tip of a probe thermometer so it doesn’t thin.
- Cut the dough to separate the rolls and press the new edges together with your fingers. Use a bench knife to transfer each roll to the baking sheet.
- If you have a pan larger than a half sheet, you may be able to fit all the pizza rolls for one round of baking, so repeat the assembly process now with the ball of dough scraps. Otherwise, follow the rest of the instructions occasionally and then assemble the pizza rolls with unloading dough while the first sheet is baking.
- Brush the assembled rolls with oil, melted butter or beaten egg and sprinkle with oregano and grated Parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese.
- Using your toothpick or probe thermometer, poke several holes in the top of each roll so steam can escape as they cook.
- Bake for 13 to 15 minutes or until tops are lightly browned. If you refrigerated the dough when making the sourdough version, the pizza rolls may not brown as much due to the acidity of the dough.
- Let the pizza roll cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before serving as the inside is melted.
- Store any uneaten rolls in a closed container in the refrigerator. The rolls can also be frozen and reheated in the oven at 425°F for 7 to 8 minutes.
Notes
Sauce: For my first batch of pizza rolls, I used a tasty store-bought sauce with added tomato paste to thicken it (8 ounces sauce + 20 grams tomato). For my second batch of pizza rolls (sourdough and double batch), I made Nytcooking’s recipe for “Classic Marinara” with modifications (more herbs, two hot chiles, less salt, less olive oil) and l ‘I let it simmer until about 850 of about 850 The liquid of grams was reduced to 485 grams.
