One of my favorite things to do is to make rustic style pizzas with unorthodox toppings as a way to try out new flavor combinations. After all, pizza is just a plate made of bread, right? I call them rustic because I can never seem to get them perfectly circular. That being said, I never really try since it all tastes the same anyways. This fig pizza is a perfect example.
There is no tomato sauce, nor meaty goodness on this fig pizza, and for good reason. I did not want to make a sausage pizza that just happened to have figs on them. Just a simple thin crust pizza with a base of seasoned ricotta cheese, and topped with fresh juicy figs and shallot. You can omit the shallot if you like, but I feel it adds a nice balance to the sweetness of the figs. Shallots are sweeter than red onion though so it won’t overpower the dish.
My dough recipe is extremely simple, with just 4 ingredients. If you have a favorite pizza dough recipe you prefer though, feel free to use your own.
Fig Pizza Ingredients
Pizza Dough
- 240 grams Bread Flour. You can use all purpose if that’s all you have but bread flour is better in my experience.
- 120 ml Water; warm. I use a thermometer and try to get it between 35-40 degrees Celsius. I don’t really know if this is important, it’s just the way I was taught so it’s the way I keep doing it.
- 1/2 tsp Dry Yeast.
- 1/4 tsp Baking Powder. This is optional. It’s something I was taught to do, but I’ve left it out when I didn’t have baking powder and to be honest, I couldn’t much tell the difference.
- 1/4 tsp Salt.
Fig Pizza Topping
- 3 ripe Figs. I used Brown Turkey Figs picked in early September. That means as a “second season” fig, they have a thicker skin, but are also more sweet. You can use early summer figs as well. If you can only find Black Mission figs, those are great too!
- 250 grams Ricotta Cheese. I used about 200 grams as the base, then crumble the rest over the pizza right before it goes in the oven.
- 2 small Shallots. You can use red onion, but it will have a much sharper flavor. With the shallots, I use one before the oven, and then one after the oven so it’s kind of like shallots two ways.
- 1-2 tbsp Olive Oil.
- 1 tbsp Garlic Powder.
- 2 tsp Salt.
- 1 tsp Freshly Cracked Black Pepper.
Fig Pizza Instructions
As with any pizza, we’ll have to start with the dough. You can use a stand mixer for this, but you’re going to have to dirty your table anyways so I just use a bowl. Place the flour and the yeast and the baking powder and the salt in a bowl. Slowly trickle in the warm water mixing with a fork. When all the water is incorporated, knead the dough on a flour dusted flat surface for about 5-10 minutes, or until you can make a ball with no cracks. Place back in the bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let sit for 30 minutes on the counter.
As the dough is resting, let’s make the ricotta base. Put all the ricotta in a bowl and whisk it with the salt, garlic powder, and black pepper. If your ricotta is too crumbly you can add a tablespoon of heavy cream, but I’ve never found that necessary. Whisked ricotta is creamy enough.
After the dough has rested for a half hour you can begin rolling it out. You can also preheat your oven to 250 degrees Celsius or just under 500 Fahrenheit. As you can see in the picture I clearly don’t care about perfect circles so just roll it out however you want. This is a thin crust dough so I get it quite thin, knowing it will not rise much.
I put the dough on a sheet pan before adding the toppings. As you can tell I am not using a pizza stone as I don’t need the oven to get that hot. A normal kitchen oven works just fine for this dish. Spread on about 80% of the ricotta mixture covering almost all of the dough except a tiny sliver for the crust, then lay down the figs and slices from one (1) of the shallots.
Drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take the fig pizza out, and sprinkle with slices from the other shallot. Cut and serve!
Notes
You can absolutely alter this fig pizza to suit your needs. As it is, it’s vegetarian, but you can change the ricotta to a base of your choice if you prefer. Although, it would be hard to get rid of figs, as figs have the decomposed bodies of dead wasps inside them. That’s what gives them the crunch. Just kidding, those are the seeds. Not kidding about the dead wasps.
Fig Pizza
Ingredients
Method
- As with any pizza, we’ll have to start with the dough. You can use a stand mixer for this, but you’re going to have to dirty your table anyways so I just use a bowl. Place the flour and the yeast and the baking powder and the salt in a bowl. Slowly trickle in the warm water mixing with a fork. When all the water is incorporated, knead the dough on a flour dusted flat surface for about 5-10 minutes, or until you can make a ball with no cracks. Place back in the bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let sit for 30 minutes on the counter.
- As the dough is resting, let’s make the ricotta base. Put all the ricotta in a bowl and whisk it with the salt, garlic powder, and black pepper. If your ricotta is too crumbly you can add a tablespoon of heavy cream, but I’ve never found that necessary. Whisked ricotta is creamy enough.
- After the dough has rested for a half hour you can begin rolling it out. You can also preheat your oven to 250 degrees Celsius or just under 500 Fahrenheit. As you can see in the picture I clearly don’t care about perfect circles so just roll it out however you want. This is a thin crust dough so I get it quite thin, knowing it will not rise much.
- I put the dough on a sheet pan before adding the toppings. As you can tell I am not using a pizza stone as I don’t need the oven to get that hot. A normal kitchen oven works just fine for this dish. Spread on about 80% of the ricotta mixture covering almost all of the dough except a tiny sliver for the crust, then lay down the figs and slices from one (1) of the shallots.
- Drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take the fig pizza out, and sprinkle with slices from the other shallot. Cut and serve!
