Cookie Pizza Imposter

Make a cookie pizza that looks like the real thing! See if you can fool
your friends into thinking it’s a savory treat, but they take a bite and find out it’s sweet.

Cookie (Crust) Part:
-3 cups of flour

-1/2 teaspoon of fine salt

-heaping half teaspoon of baking powder

-1 cup (2 sticks) of butter

-1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar

-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

-one large egg

Toppings:
Cheese/Sauce(Frosting)

-8 oz pack of cream cheese

-3 cups of powdered sugar

-2 tablespoons of milk

-4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) of butter

-yellow and red food coloring

Additional Toppings:

-Green sour patch kids (As bell peppers)

-Red fondant (As pepperoni)

-Sugar cookie bits (As sausage)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Put salt, baking powder, and flour in a bowl, and combine by whisking lightly

Put sugar and softened butter into an electric mixer, and beat it on
high speed until light and fluffy. Next, add the vanilla and egg into the mix, and beat until fully incorporated.

Add about half of the flour mixture into the electric mixing bowl, and
beat on medium-low until it’s incorporated. Once it’s mixed in, add the second half of the mixture, and beat until it is fully blended. The dough will look a little crumbly, but will hold its shape.

Get out a baking sheet and cover it with a layer of parchment paper.
Take out some dough (about the size of two fists), and place it in the middle of the baking sheet. With a rolling pin, roll it out until it’s about a quarter of an inch thick.

Once you have the dough rolled out, take out a round 9 inch cake pan,
and use it as a giant cookie cutter, but don’t remove the excess cookie dough from the pan quite yet. Using a knife, cut the extra dough in a slightly bigger circle, so there’s about half of an inch left surrounding the main circle. Then pull off the extra dough. The final result should be a 9 inch circle with a 1/2 inch rim surrounding it.

Using that little bit of extra dough, fold it on top of the main dough
with your fingers, crimping it down as you go. This will serve at the slightly thicker crust that you normally use to pick up the pizza. Once it’s completely folded over, use your fingers to smooth the crack the makes it look like two separate pieces of dough, so it will look like once piece with a slightly thicker rim.

Put it in the oven for about 22 minutes. The edges should be slightly brown when you take it out.

Put the room temperature cream cheese and butter into a bowl, and whip
it on high with an electric mixer until it becomes light and fluffy. Then add in the powdered sugar and milk. Once it is incorporated, whip it on high speed again until its fluffy and the desired consistency.

Scoop out about half a cup of frosting and put it in a small, separate
bowl. Then dye it a dark red, and stir in about two dozen dark colored sprinkles for texture. Spread a thin layer of the red frosting onto the cookie crust, and that will be your sauce.

Scoop another half cup into a separate bowl, and dye it a light yellow.
Next, scoop two heaping spoonfuls of white frosting, and mix it very gently, folding it in, but not mixing the two colors. The frosting should end up marbled. Then, pour it onto the pizza and spread it, but be careful not to mix it with the sauce.

Take out your red fondant, and roll it very thinly on a nonstick
surface. Then, using a circular cookie cutter or small glass, cut the pepperoni out of the sheet of fondant. You will probably need 9-10. Once you have cut them out, use a toothpick and spread a very thin layer of orange food coloring on top of the pepperoni. This will help tone down the color if it is to bright, as well as simulate grease. But if you are happy with the original color of the pepperoni, then that step is not needed.

Take some of the extra cookie dough, about the size of your fist, and
put it in the electric mixer, along with a teaspoon of cocoa powder. Mix it together on low. Now, since the dough is slightly crumbly, some of the pieces will pick up cocoa powder, but some will stay lighter. Once it is about 50/50, half light and half dark, stop the mixer and add a little bit of orange food coloring, and mix it together for about 5 seconds. This should result in multi-colored dough, with many different specks of color, making it look quite a bit like sausage. Once you’ve finished making the sausage, and are happy with the coloring, crumble it, and form small sausage pieces. Then put them in the oven at 350 for 5 minutes to cook. Once they have come out and cooled, place them on the pizza however you want. It will probably take 9 pieces of sausage, as well as some crumbled up extra bits.

Take out your green sour patch kids- you should only need 2 or 3- and
place them on a cutting board. Cut them in thin strips horizontally, then cut those pieces in half. Sprinkle them on top of the pizza.

If you want it to look even more realistic, pull out a kitchen blow torch, and lightly torch some of the cheese and pepperoni pieces. This will give the effect that the cheese has bubbled and the pepperoni has been cooked. Once you’ve done that, you’re finished! Now slice it up and enjoy!