Thursday Night Pizza's Creepy Halloween Spider Web Pizza
This Halloween-themed pizza looks way more complicated than it actually is. Plus, it's a guaranteed kid pleaser, topped with a string cheese web and black olive spiders.
Makes: 1 (12- to 14-inch) pizza
Cost: $10
Equipment
- Cutting board and knife
- Rolling pin (optional)
- Large rimmed baking sheet or baking stone/steel
- Pizza peel (optional)
Ingredients
- 4 sticks whole-milk string cheese
- 12 large pitted black olives
- 1 (14- to 16-ounce) ball pizza dough (I recommend my overnight recipe, but you can also use a ball of your favorite store-bought dough)
- ⅔ to ¾ cup Super-Easy Marinara Sauce (or your favorite store-bought pizza sauce)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 500°F (if using a baking sheet) or as high as it will go (if using a baking stone/steel; place the stone/steel in the oven before you start preheating).
- While the oven preheats, prep the spiderweb and spider toppings: Pull the string cheese into thin strips and set aside. Cut the olives in half lengthwise. Set 8 of the halves aside (these will be your spiders' bodies), and cut each of the remaining halves lengthwise into 4 equal-size strips (these will be the spiders' legs).
- Stretch or roll out your dough to a 12- to 14-inch circle, then transfer it to a baking sheet/pizza pan or a lightly floured pizza peel (if using a baking stone/steel). Prick the dough all over with a fork (this will prevent crust bubbles from messing up your spiderweb design).
- Spread the sauce on top of the dough, leaving a ½-inch border all around.
- Transfer the sauced dough to the oven. Bake just until the crust looks dry and is light golden in color and the sauce is bubbling but not yet browned in spots, about 3 minutes on a stone/steel and 5 minutes on a baking sheet.
- Remove the pizza from the oven. Working as quickly as you can, arrange the strips of string cheese on the pizza in the shape of a spider web (watch the video for a step-by-step tutorial), then assemble the spiders wherever you like across the web (each spider gets an olive-half body and 8 olive slice legs).
- Return the pizza to the oven and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese has just melted.
- Remove the pizza from the oven. Let cool slightly, then slice and serve.