Sweet Fruit "Pizza" made with Basic Sweet Roll Dough

I made this last week, but didn't have time to post it. Now it's probably rather late to find peaches. However it would be just fine with plums, or apples for that matter. You can use hard whole wheat flour for the spelt flour if it's easier to find.

The dough is a basic sweet dough that can also be used for cinnamon buns or a strudel-type loaf filled with poppyseed filling, nut filling or the streusel recipe below, with raisins. Any of those, or this pizza, could be made a bit sweeter by drizzling a simple sugar glaze over it. As it is, it's not too sweet to eat for breakfast which is how we had it. The sugar glaze would make it more suitable for dessert.

12 servings
20 minutes to make dough, 30 minutes bake time, several hours to overnight for rising


Sweet Roll Dough:
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups hard unbleached flour
2 1/2 cups whole or lightly sifted spelt flour
2 extra-large eggs
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
extra spelt flour to knead and roll out

Heat the milk until it is warm to the touch, but not too hot. Sprinkle the yeast into it and let it sit for about 10 minutes, until foamy.

Meanwhile, measure and mix the sugar, salt and flours, and melt the butter.

Whisk the butter and eggs into the yeast mixture, then stir in the flour and sugar mixture. When it becomes hard to stir, turn the whole mess out onto a clean board or counter sprinkled with flour. Knead the dough for about 5 or 10 minutes, incorporating a little more flour if needed, to achieve a smooth, soft and only slightly sticky dough.

Put a bit of oil in a clean bowl, and turn the dough in it until it is coated. Cover the bowl and put the dough in a warm place to rise. When it is doubled in size - and I find this dough quite slow-rising; you might want to leave it to rise overnight - roll it out to fit in a pizza pan.

Streusel Topping & Peaches:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup Sucanat or other dark brown sugar
1/3 cup soft unbleached flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
6 large peaches or apples, or 12 to 18 German or Italian prune plums

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Mix the butter. Sucanat, flour and cinnamon until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. If it seems to clumpy, add another tablespoon of flour.

Wash the fruit. Pit or core the peaches, plums or apples, and cut them into slices. Arrange the slices over the dough. Sprinkle the streusel topping evenly over the fruit. Bake the pizza for 30 minutes, until baked through and the fruit is soft.

Serve warm or cool, as-is or with a simple glaze drizzled over it. (One cup sifted icing sugar, with 2 tablespoons liquid - milk, lemon or orange juice, or even water. Mix well, until the sugar is completely dissolved. Adjust with a little more sugar or liquid if it is not the right consistency to drizzle over the pastry then set.)




Last year around this time, I made Braised Leeks with Mushrooms, Plum & Apple Compote with Custard, and Wild Rice Pancakes.