Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

[FornoBravoNews]

Here's a great dessert pizza recipe featured at this year's Expo by The Pizza Gypsy.

Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

This recipe is reminiscent of a "lemon square" dessert. It's both sweet and tart.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz. dough ball
• Mascarpone cheese - room temperature
• 2-3 whole lemons, completely zested of all rind, then sliced extremely thin
• 2 TBLS sweet butter
• Approx 1.5-2 heaping cups of confectioners' sugar

Steps:

• Prepare your dough ball into a 12"-14" pie.
• Spread a thin layer of mascarpone cheese across the entire pie, leaving a thin edge of the pie exposed at the outer circumference (just like you make a traditional pie). You don't need much cheese; you're simply using it as a binding agent for the lemons.
• Now layer your thinly sliced lemons. Starting at the center of the pie and, building outward, create a spiral and cover the mascarpone cheese. You'll likely need 2.5 lemons to cover the pie.
• Cook your pie in your screaming hot oven. It should take 90-120 seconds.
• Now brush a thin layer of butter onto the pie, covering all of the lemons.
• Now for the insanity: Using a flour sifter, gently sift confectioners' sugar throughout the surface of the pie. Cover it with a good amount. Don't be shy, but don't "dump it on." Completely cover with a single layer, then wait. You'll notice that the sugar will appear to "melt." It will look like a liquid. That's good. Now repeat the process of covering the pie with another layer. Repeat this process - it will take at least 4 layers (perhaps more) - until the sugar no longer liquefies, but instead starts looking like powder.
• You're done. Slice and serve. Enjoy!

Variations:
One could add pickled ginger and/or thinly julienned fresh mint.

Source:
The Pizza Gypsy of Santa Cruz, Calif.: Home Page

[Lburou]

Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

I want to try that one

[mfiore]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

That looks awesome!

I just wanted to clarify. Instructions stated to zest all of the rind, yet the photo seems to show whole lemon slices, peel and all. Am I mistaken?

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

We tried this last night. My wife zested the rind, but she thought that she would cut it all off the next time we try it. We tried it two ways... first time we pre-baked the crust which made it easy to spread LOTS of marscapone on. The second time we used a fresh dough which made for more difficult cheese spreading. It soaks up LOTS of icing sugar for sure. The only downside was how sogy it got in the middle. The lemon juice comes out along with the melted marscapone making for lots of moisture. Looking at the picture they must not have used near as much cheese as I did, even on the fresh dough.

[mfiore]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

We made this twice now. While it tastes great, we also had difficulties. The resultant pie looked nothing like the photo above. I found the Marscapone to be difficult to spread. The best we could do was "dollop" it on. The dessert came out very, very watery. The lemons, when cooked at such a high temp, did not look like neat little wheels, as in the photo, but more of a pile of lemon mush!

Everyone loved the way it tasted, though!

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

I concur that the lemons turn to mush, and everyone is hesitant at first but all like the taste. We bake the crust (untopped), let it cool slightly, then top it, put it back in the oven for 20-30 seconds, then wash with butter and sift icing sugar.

[mrchipster]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

We were at the conference and I can say this desert clinched the deal for my wife to approve of me being able to build the WFO in our back yard. The key to the lemons seems to be cutting the slices very thin and leaving the skin on. The Gypsy crew turned out several of these all looking the same as the one shown.

Still at the block stage here in Minnesota, I will be starting a thread soon.

Chip

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

Mine looks like that before I cut it too..... got a pic after it's cut?

[ksm]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

We tried this tonight and loved it, too. Thought I'd report about our experience and post a pix of what the inside looked like.

We made this after doing two pizzas and one calzone, so the floor was about 500 degrees.

Following the advice above, we par-baked the "crust" -- for about 40 seconds.

We let it cool only for the time it took to get from the WFO to the kitchen. Thus, the crust was still pretty warm, which made spreading the mascarpone easier. It would have been even easier had I remembered to bring it to room temp first, of course! Following Tman1's lead, we spread on more than just a "thin layer."

Then we layered on the sliced lemons (2 lemons worth) and back into the WFO until the edges were browned and the top bubbling. We lifted the pie up to the top of the oven for a few seconds at the end to brown some of the edges of the lemons.

Back to the kitchen to sift over the powdered sugar. (Once again, I messed up and forgot the butter. Too bad as it probably adds a nice layer of flavor.) However, the pie would only take about 2/3 cup of sugar.

So we were worried that it would be too tart, but it wasn't.

Next time I'll remember to have the mascarpone at room temp and will remember the butter. I'll also try to slice away all but a wafer-thin bit of the rind. Though we used a rasp grater to remove the zest and as much of the rind as we could, the pie doesn't cook long enough for the rind to soften. And since my knife skills aren't stellar, some rinds were thick enough to make them hard to bite through.

As you can see from the "inside" pix, the pie has an almost custard appearance. As others have said, it is juicy, but oh, so tasty!

[ksm]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

Aargh! The pix didn't post. Let me try again.

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

I would say this has been a very tasty pizza, but it's not clean (a little hard to eat with your hands).

[cobblerdave]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

Hi all
My wifes a lemon nut so I had to cook this one.
First attempt....well alright but it was hard to spread the cheese on the dough, the resulting pizza was a little "wet in the middle"and hard to move around. The results...Wow what a flavour burst. did however find the skins a little bitter. The wife polished off the lot
Secound attempt.....armed with the previous attempt results I changed the following. 1/2 cooked the base made the cheese spreadin so much easier still not easy. I zested the lemons then took off the pith ( Thick skinned lemons had to). The resulting pizza was good still a little damp but well thats the sota pizza it is. The flavour is mind blowing. The child bride eats hers straight up but I found that served with a bit of choclate ice cream.....it a marriage made in heaven.....again the wifes polished off the rest...Happy wife happy life!!!

Regards Dave

[Tman1]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

I've wondered about lowering the amount of marscapone, and letting the lemon slices sit on a paper towel to absorb some moisture from the lemons. My wife sprinkled the zested lemon peel on after the icing sugar for another burst of flavor.

[Modthyrth]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

It's lemon season! Our trees are heavy with fruit and the weather is glorious, and we just tried this recipe on Thursday. It was seriously delicious, but like others experienced, it was really wet and gooey. Kind of hard to eat without all the toppings falling off.

All the guests loved it, though the favorite is still definitely Frances' nutella pizza. I'm not allowed to host pizza night without making that one, but this lemon pizza is definitely going into the rotation for the months that we have lemons on our tree. Thanks for sharing!

[dbhansen]

Re: Pizza Gypsy Lemon Drop Pizza

We tried this pizza recently, following a different recipe that suggested baking at about 400 degrees until the (unpeeled) lemons begin to brown. The result was a long baking time (maybe 8 minutes or so) but it came out with a very crisp crust and great flavor, not mushy at all.