Portrait Pizza

Everyone loves Pizza! - No doubt about that!

Spice up you favourite pizza recipe with a personal cheese-portrait!

Be the hero of your kid with a spiderman-pizza or

praise and worship your own childhood heroes!

Bud Spencer, Chuck Norris, Darth Vader you name it!

It's fun, it's easy but the best part of it:

IT'S PIZZA!

Let's get started!

Step 1: Tracing

You'll need:

a picture of your personal hero ( the web helps with that)

parchment paper

a pencil

later you'll need s sharp knife or scalpel

Place the sheet of parchment paper on your chosen picture ( in my case Bud Spencer and a storm trooper)

trace the lines with a pencil

for the best result, the picture will be mirrored on the pizza - so if you want letters you have to mirror them before tracing!

Flip the parchment paper (drawn lines down) and place it on a baking sheet.

Step 2: Fuse the Cheese

Choose your favourite cheese

unfortnately mozzarella won't work

you can grate it yourself or buy it ready made - both will work.

place it on the drawn and flipped parchment paper on the baking sheet.

Don't be cheap on the cheese - you want a even sheet of cheese with no holes.

Now use the grill-function of your oven to melt and fuse the cheese ( be careful not to overbake!)

if there are small holes in the cheese-sheet just patch them with more cheese and give it one more minute in the oven.

Step 3: Cut the Portrait

after the cheese sheet has cooled down, you can start to cut the portrait.

- You'll see: cheese is very forgiving :)

flip the cheese and the parchment paper on a cutting board.

start cutting the lines with a scalpel or sharp knife - the paper is not that easy to cut, but it's enough if you trace the lines, so that they will show on the cheese when removing the paper.

Thin lines you have to cut double to enlarge them ( you can see that on the storm trooper portrait)

When finished the cutting job flip the portrait and clean the cuts with the scalpel.

the cheese scraps can be used on the pizza or if you're hungry: you know what to do :)

Step 4: Pizza Time!

Prepare your favourite Pizza dough (or buy ready made, whatever you like)

roll out thinly and spread tomato-sauce on it

TIP: if you want ham or salami on your pizza, lay it UNDER the tomatosauce, cause you want an even red surface.

Sprinkle the other toppings like a frame around and leave space for the portrait.

Bake the Pizza without the portrait!

my favourite recipe for 2 pizzas:
400g all purpose flour

25g yeast

1 tsp sugar

2 tsp salt

150ml lukewarm water

50ml olive oil

Step 5: The Portrait

One the Pizza is almost done, place the portrait in the middle and bake it for maybe 2 more minutes,

make sure it doesn't melt too much - that would destroy your work!

Step 6: Serve and Enjoy!

decorate your pizza with some fresh basil leaves ( optional )

and enjoy your portrait pizza!