Aperitif pizza with baked camembert

About this recipe

Camembert? Delicious.

Pizza? Yummy.

Flamed Camembert on a pizza as an appetizer? Delicious.

by @baking - Feel free to contact me via Instagram or Facebook.

Ingredients

• 1 ball of pizza dough
• 30 g butter
• 1 clove (roasted) garlic
• fresh garden herbs such as sage, rosemary, and thyme
• 30 g grated Parmesan cheese
• freshly ground salt and pepper
• 1 camembert
• 1 teaspoon chili flakes or herbes de Provence

Preparation

1. Light the fire in your Vonken.
2. Take the Camembert and remove all plastic packaging. Place the Camembert in a fireproof dish (if you place it directly on the stone in its wooden box, the melted cheese may drip out).
3. You can place the camembert in the oven fairly soon after lighting the fire, so you can make immediate use of the heat while your oven is heating up. Just keep an eye on it from time to time to make sure it doesn't burn.
4. Crush a clove of garlic (if you are using roasted garlic, it will already be soft) and chop the fresh herbs. Add the softened butter and mix the herbs and garlic into the butter. Season with pepper and salt to taste.
5. Check whether the Camembert in your oven is nicely baked, and place it on the oven to keep it warm. Now you can sprinkle some chili flakes or herbes de Provence over the Camembert. If necessary, turn up the heat on your Vonken oven. For a Neapolitan pizza, we aim for a stone temperature of around 400 to 430°C.
6. Now let's move on to preparing the pizza. Take your dough ball and roll it in semolina (or flour) to prevent it from sticking to your hands and work surface. Place it on your work surface and press the dough with the top half of your fingers, from the center of the ball to the edge—but leave about 1 cm of the edge untouched. Turn the circle around and repeat until you have formed the ball into a nice circle. Now you can stretch the pizza base further to 25 to 30 centimeters (for a 250g dough ball) using a technique of your choice.
7. Here are a few options:
   • On your work surface, enlarge the base with both palms by gently stretching it from the inside out, moving the base in a circular motion.
   • Remove the dough from the work surface and rest it just behind the edge on the knuckles of your fists. Reposition your fists each time so that a new piece of dough rests on them, and is stretched by gravity.
   • Take the dough from the work surface and move it vertically back and forth between your left and right hands. With each movement, rotate the circle slightly. If you find it difficult to imagine how this works, you can find plenty of videos on YouTube that illustrate these methods.
8. If you are satisfied with your pizza base, place it back on your work surface or directly onto a lightly floured pizza peel.
9. Lightly spread the herb butter on the pizza base—there's no need for a thick layer, otherwise your dough will be swimming in butter. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.
10. Check the temperature of the stone in your oven with an IR thermometer. Slide the pizza onto your lightly floured pizza peel (or work directly on the pizza peel when adding the toppings) in one smooth motion, and shake it gently back and forth to check that it will slide easily. If everything looks good, you can now slide the pizza onto the stone.
11. Keep a close eye on the pizza and turn it every 20 seconds or so to ensure an evenly baked crust. The pizza should be ready after about 60-90 seconds.
12. If necessary, briefly reheat the Camembert and serve with the fresh pizza. You can now spread the melted Camembert generously over your pizza and simply dip the crusts directly into it!