Fig & Brie Cheese Pizza – Summer isn’t over yet!
We were ready for Autumn, or what ever version Southern California is capable of, and looking forward to pumpkins, apples and the cooler dry air that marks our fall. However the weather has been indecisive about what season it wants to represent, or maybe it was one last summer ho-rah, because we were just inundated with several weeks of hot, 90°+ sunshine.
Unfortunately, our extension of hot days and plenty of sunshine is playing tricks on the garden. Our tomatoes have found their “second wind” and are now producing way more flowers and growth than ever before. The eggplant and zucchini are plump and adorable and our huge fig tree is offering sweet love to us admirers below (and unfortunately also to the squirrels up above – cheeky, little bastards!)
Fig with Brie and Grapes, brie and thyme pizza toppings
Obviously, if the garden says it’s still Summer, than we’ll heed to their call and bounty. We’ll continue harvesting everything that was supposed to grow in August well into October. So it’s time to pull out the pizza dough and make some pizzas with all the gorgeous figs in the garden.
We even tried the pizza with some grape toppings and they come out delicious! The pizza possibilities are endless.
-Diane
**Pardon the interuption. It’s Todd here and I wanted to chat a bit about pizza.
Making your own pizza crusts is super simple, especially after adapting in the methods from the internet cult favorite bread book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Here’s our recipe for a thin crust pizza dough, but after chatting with Nancy Silverton just before our Japan trip, she had described a technique for a focaccia crust she saw in Italy which peaked our intrigue. When we come up with a recipe we love for a plump, thick crust, we’ll post about that as well. If anyone has a dough recipe that they are mad over, please feel free to share it in the comments.
For our thin crust pizzas, I picked up a lovely little trick while working in the restaurant underworld. We’ll make a batch of 5-6 crusts, par bake them, then freeze the crusts for future use. When you are pizza starved, take a crust out of the freezer, crank up the oven to 450-500°F, and while your oven heats up and the crust thaws a little, prepare your toppings. Brush the crust with touch of olive oil, put on your toppings, toss in the oven and in 5-10 minutes the pizza is ready.
Now back to the regularly typed commentary…
“Pizza with figs? Grapes!?” you may be wondering with a bit of skepticism. “Yes!” we say. Heartily, yes.
It isn’t that bizarre when you compare figs to a classic pizza topping, tomatoes. Tomatoes are, after all, a fruit not all that different from figs in texture and sweetness. The grapes came out pretty tasty, too. Their flavor profiles are a bit different from tomatoes, and that is where the brie cheese comes in.
Fruit with brie cheese pair wonderfully together in sandwiches and salads. Topping them on pizza is even better, where the cheese is able to melt and the fruit roasts down to expose its nectary sweet sugar flavors. The thin, crisp crust of the pizza provides the perfect delivery of Autumn/Summer’s bounty.
Fig & Brie Pizza Recipe- or with grapes
Ingredients
- Par-Baked Pizza Crust
- Brie cheese , thinly sliced
- Handful of ripe figs/grapes , sliced
- tomato sauce
- olive oil
- fresh basil (optional)
- fresh cracked pepper (optional)
- sea salt (optional)
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 450°F.
- Brush pizza crust with olive oil. Add a thin layer of tomato sauce, then place brie and figs on crust. Sprinkle with fresh cracked pepper & sea salt, if desired.
- Place crust on baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in oven for @ 10 min. or until crust is nicely browned.
- Remove from oven, & finish with fresh basil, if desired.
I love fruit on pizza when it is paired with a strongly flavored cheese. The Pear and Gorgonzola pizza from CPK is the only thing I eat there. I might have to try this. It looks delicious.
i am soooo envious of your fig tree! beautiful pizzas as well.. mmm.
The pizzas look amazing, I wish I could grab a piece right out of my monitor. I shouldn’t read your blog when I am hungry
YES YES YES! I adore pizza with fruit toppings! Figs and procuitto, please!
Oh my god, that grape/brie pizza looks amazing. I want it right now!
You are so stinking lucky you live in California and get fresh figs! The figs that make their way out to Michigan are sad indeed. I would love to put fresh figs on my homemade pizzas.
I have had a focaccia topped with grapes, rosemary and a sprinkling of sugar-it is a lasting taste memory. I am ready to try your fig & brie pizza, looks and sounds delicious. Love the idea of par-baked pizza crusts with two teenagers in the house. I am also a fan of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I just keep making the same Light Whole Wheat Bread recipe, because it is so darn good and easy.
I love the combination of figs and brie , the pizzas look great. It’s been warm here too in Seattle, and I am NOT looking forward for the cold/rain……..
Wow- my mouth is totally watering! You are so lucky to have a fig tree. I would just love to have my own tree…merely a dream for an apartment dweller! Maybe someday! Thanks for sharing this simple idea and inspiring me to try something similar!
The top photo of the figs is gorgeous!!!
OMG! Figs – just picked the first batch off my tree this weekend and lots more slowly ripening. Sitting here trying to figure out what to do with them. They’re green Kadotas, I think from my Brooklyn back yard. Tree was planted by my father and I’m not sure how old it is. It didn’t grow any figs for a time and we tried half heartedly to cut some of the tree down last year and lo and behold! it grew back like crazy and has tons of fruit.
So far, eaten plain, halved with a bit of Greek yogurt and honey. Pizza looks fabulous – figs and brie. I think I’ve gone to heaven. Had planned to bake a fig cake this evening but pooped out and decided to surf the web instead. Maybe, tomorrow night.
If anyone has simple and of course, delicious recipes for figs I’d love some ideas.
I love figs. I haven’t eaten figs in such a long time. Figs don’t grow in a tropical country and I miss them so much most especially when I see a fig recipe. This one is really tempting and the figs are just beautiful.
Very, very pretty… very, very California looking pizzas. Figs! And why not? Pineapple has always been great on a Hawaiin pie. I agree, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination, (and perhaps courage) ! Boldly go forth where no Jersey Pizzaria has gone before.
Oh, wow, this sounds great. I have to admit my exposure to figs has been in the newton way. How do you tell if a fig is ripe or not? (Since I will be shopping in Wisconsin).
I love figs!! Wait let me say that louder… I LOVE FIGS!!! I just bought some fig preserves and I’m tellin’ ya, I could eat the whole jar. Figs on pizza – amazing! I started my fig this year and it tripled in size this summer. In a month or so he’ll have to get wrapped in a blankie and put in the shed to go dormat. Prolly don’t have to do that in Cali huh??? LOL.
I cannot imagine a pizza with fruit toppings, having been used to the traditional pizza, but what is even more unimaginable is bitter melon as topping which I had on a very thin crust pizza, in a cafe in northern Philippines. It worked well with whatever other ingredients it had, tomatoes, onions, with a little bit of anchovies even. I was too busy munching to mind the other ingredients. It surely was a pleasant surprise and a wonderful culinary fusion discovery…..Italy meets Ilocandia! (Northern region of the Philippines).