I like to read my cookbooks front-to-back, just like a real book – every introduction, every ingredient, and every footnote of every recipe. A couple, like both of The Pastry Queen books, I’ve read several times.

I was heading into the last chapter of one of my Christmas presents, Giada’s Kitchen. It was devoted to fun-ish recipes that children can help with or should at the very least, eat. We don’t have kids, though the argument could easily be made that we’re both just a couple of overgrown brats ourselves. I almost called it quits at the fish sticks recipe, my most unfavorite thing ever to have eaten growing up. And then I hit the pizza rolls.

Really, pizza in nearly any form is pretty close to perfection – rolls, sticks, calzones, and quickie-muffin “pizzas” that bear almost no resemblance to real pizza at all. Even most “bad” pizza is tolerable. You can almost never go wrong with pizza.

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Whole Wheat Prosciutto, Basil, and Mozzarella Pinwheels

A fun party appetizer: pizza pinwheels stuffed with mozzarella, basil, and prosciutto.

Ingredients

• 1 lb pizza dough (my favorite dough), prepared and ready to shape
• 8-10 thin slices Prosciutto di Parma
• 1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese, grated
• 1 large bunch basil
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• Sea salt
• Marinara sauce, for serving

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425, set the rack in the middle.
2. Shape the dough. Carefully dredge the ball of dough in a bowl of flour (so as not to press the air out of the dough) to coat and transfer to a dry work surface.
3. Hold one edge of the dough in the air with both hands and let the bottom edge touch the work surface. Carefully move hands around the edge of the dough (like turning a steering wheel) to stretch the dough to 10-12 inches.
4. Lay dough on a lightly floured surface and gently stretch the circle into a rectangle.
5. Sprinkle the cheese over the dough top and cover with prosciutto slices and whole basil leaves.
6. Crack fresh black pepper over the top. Roll the dough into a thin cylinder, sealing the seam by pinching the dough together and tucking under the ends
7. Brush the top with olive oil and sprinkle with course salt (we also topped with thin tomato slices).
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.
9. Slice into 1-inch wide pinwheels and serve with marinara sauce, if desired.

Notes

Yields: ~18 slices

Adapted from Giada's Kitchen, 2008