The soap shop I used to work in looked a bit like an eighteenth-century apothecary. Creaky, buckling, paint-stained floors, amber glass bottles full of fragrances, containers full of dried rose petals and lavender and ground coffee. A creepy, dungeon-esque crawlspace with holes in the stone wall and a perpetual pool of water in the corner. Before it was a soap shop it had a printing press, and it also happens to be on a ley line. I loved to hear the stories about the ghosts that haunted it; Percy, the original owner of the building; the little boy who loved to stack the soaps once everyone in the shop went home; the floating lights that still appear often on the security camera after hours.
The shop shared a street with a coffee corner, a yoga studio, a store where one would go if in search of incense or crystals or tarot cards, and a pizza place. As I’m sure you can guess, it’s the last one that inspired today’s recipe.
That pizza place saw an endless stream of all of us who worked in the soap shop. They sold slices of pizza that were as big as your face and so thin they were foldable, but without feeling unsatisfying. Every month, they sold a different specialty flavor. This is based on my favorite.
A light tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, parmesan, and pepperoni are not exactly revolutionary pizza ingredients. No, the appeal of the this pizza was in the locally-sourced hot honey drizzled on top. Honey seems like a weird ingredient to pair with pepperoni, but it’s so good. So good that I went back four times that month for another slice.
My riff on this is to add sautéed garlic and butter to honey that we’ll spice up with red pepper flakes (be extremely generous with this) and using flatbread instead of making dough. I don’t like making pizza dough, and it’s way faster this way. Pizza seems like it should be a quick meal to me, and this one took 20 minutes from when I got the ingredients out to when I pulled it out of the oven. It’s faster, tastier, and less greasy than delivery pizza. (It’s also miles above frozen, but since frozen pizza is unrelentingly horrifying, I don’t feel it’s as good of a selling point.)
I said I’d tell you when ingredient quality mattered, and it matters here. I seriously encourage you to go the extra mile for good-quality pepperoni. You can try this with Hormel pepperoni but I have done that and it is Not the Same. Don’t be tempted to grab a jar of sauce, either. This one doesn’t even require a saucepan, just a bowl to mix the ingredients in. You’ll have a decent amount leftover, so put that in the fridge or freezer for another pizza night, and then you’ve got a head start.
pepperoni pizza with spicy garlic honey
ingredients
for the sauce
2 fresh garlic cloves, minced or grated
3 tbsp good-quality olive oil
8 oz good-quality crushed tomatoes (or tomato passata)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
for the pizza
2 flatbreads
1 cup fresh mozzarella
¼ cup parmesan
10-12 good, big pepperoni
2 tbsp butter
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp honey
½ tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
directions
- Preheat oven to 425 F. Put flatbreads on an ungreased baking sheet. Mix all sauce ingredients in a small bowl and spoon sauce onto flatbreads to taste. I use a few tablespoons.
- Top pizzas with mozzarella, pepperoni, and parmesan. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is browning.
- While the pizza is baking, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook until fragrant and browning, then whisk in the honey and red pepper flakes and remove from heat.
- Drizzle honey over pizzas and serve.