Salted Caramel S'mores Pizza
Dark chocolate, sea salt, marshmallows, bacon, roasted sweet potatoes with cayenne, graham crackers, sorghum caramel drizzle
It's been a while since we've gone all out with a dessert pizza, and we thought semi-savory s'mores would be the perfect comeback solution. I know everyone has their own marshmallow roasting preferences, so if you don't like them as toasty as I do (I'm that person who doesn't think they're ready until they've caught on fire), you can always add them for the last minute of baking. Or if you really want the s'mores experience, you could always roast them over a fire and then add them onto the pizza at the end. Either way, the heat of the spicy sweet potatoes and the saltiness of the bacon are the perfect compliments to the rich dark chocolate and sweet sorghum. We borrowed the sorghum caramel recipe from Damaris Phillips after getting hooked on sorghum during a trip to West Virginia, but if you can't find this southern sweetener, you can substitute your favorite caramel recipe or just use pre-made caramel sauce.
Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ball of pizza dough
sea salt & pepper
olive oil
flour for dusting
semolina flour for pizza stone
1-2 bars dark chocolate, broken into pieces
6-8 large marshmallows
1-2 slices bacon
~2 graham crackers, broken into bite size pieces
1 sweet potato, peeled & diced
~1 teaspoon cayenne
For the sorghum caramel:
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup sorghum syrup
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350° F. In a bowl, toss your sweet potato cubes with the cayenne, a tablespoon of olive oil, and some salt & pepper. Then spread them out on a baking sheet and roast for about 20 minutes or so, stirring once or twice to make sure they cook evenly.
When they’re golden brown and tender, take them out and set them aside. Increase your oven temperature to 550° F, or as hot as it will go.
While your potatoes are roasting, you can start on the sorghum sauce. Combine the sugar, sorghum and butter in a pot over medium heat until the butter is melted and everything is combined, about 3 to 5 minutes.
Next, stir in the condensed milk and bring to a simmer, cooking for an additional minute. Reduce the heat and keep stirring until the temperature reaches 240° F. If you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can test this by putting a drop of the sauce into a glass of ice water—if it forms a little ball, it’s good to go. Do this test after about 20 minutes of cooking and stirring (you might want to do this with a helper so you can trade off stirring duty).
Now you can make the bacon. Lay your strips out in a pan and turn the stove to medium. They’ll cook best if you don’t preheat the pan ahead of time. Once they’re sizzling and turning brown on one side, turn them over and let them cook for a few minutes on the other side.
When they’re finished, take them out and let them drain and get crispy on a paper towel, then break them up into 1-2 inch pieces.
When your oven is hot and you have a free minute, you can start preparing your dough using the instructions on the right. Once it’s baked for a minute, take it out and brush it lightly with olive oil.
Start by laying your chocolate out on the dough—this is going to melt into a sticky sauce that binds all the other ingredients together. Next add the sweet potatoes, graham crackers and bacon and drizzle some of your caramel sauce over the whole thing.
Finally, place the marshmallows on top of the whole thing and pop it in the oven. Bake until the chocolate is gooey, the crust is golden and the marshmallows are nice and toasty on top. Take it out, drizzle some sorghum caramel over the marshmallows, sprinkle some sea salt over the entire thing, and dig in!