Sweet surprise - calzone with caramelized apples, raisins and pine nuts (and a few notes on pizza making at home)

Before I give you the recipe (at the bottom of this post), I need to spend a few words about the issues surrounding home making pizza. If you are not interested, just scroll down to the recipe and enjoy it. I promise, I won't be offended...

Growing up, Thursday nights at my house meant only one thing: home made pizza. My mother would bake two gigantic pans, one with tomato and cheese pizza, and the other one with focaccia stuffed with Tuscan sausages or prosciutto cotto. Recently, and using the birth of my son Charlie Brown as an excuse, I decided to initiate this Thursday night pizza tradition at my house (never mind that Charlie Brown is only 4 1/2 months old so he really doesn't care about pizza...)

Now, there are two approaches to home pizza making: 1) try and replicate with home equipment the results obtained by professional pizzerias, with their wood fire ovens worth thousands of $, and inevitably fail; or 2) acknowledge that it is impossible to make the perfect Neapolitan pizza at home, without a wood fire oven, and go for a different style of pizza, most commonly known in Italy as "pizza al taglio" (pizza to be served cut in pieces).

Classic pizza al taglio

The pizza my mother still makes belongs firmly in the second camp. But I have met many people who have tried to cook a perfect pizza napoletana at home. I won't even go into the problems related to the perpetual quest for the perfect home pizza dough, as elusive as the Holy Graal, because I could write a book about it. The fact is that home equipment cannot make pizza napoletana as the one you buy in pizzerias. It is as simple as that. I have heard of people buying electric pizza ovens for 50$ at a supermarket, persuaded by advertisement agencies that this was all they needed: surprisingly (!) they failed. I have heard of people who managed to remove the safety switch of their home convection ovens, so as to achieve higher temperatures than those normally allowed: surprisingly (!) they failed (and some of them set their house on fire...idiots). I have heard a lot of people buying 20-40$ pizza stones to use in the traditional ovens: they failed.

After toying for a very limited time with idea No. 1, and realizing that I was going nowhere, I safely came back to camp No. 2. Since then things have been looking good.

Usually pizza al taglio is cooked in electric ovens, in large rectangular pans, and its dough is much thicker than the one for neapolitan pizza. It is sold by weight, in pieces which are cut at the customer's request (hence, its name), who will eat it either standing on the spot, or walking in the street. The advantages of pizza al taglio is that you can really make it with any toppings you like. It is basically what Americans call flat bread, only much bigger. You want to put thinly sliced potatoes with truffle oil on your pizza? No problem. Onions and thyme? Done. Mushrooms and salami? Go ahead. Pizza and nutella? Well, paradise on your tongue.

Yesterday, while making a - very good - butternut squash, sage and blue cheese pizza, I wondered: why not bending the rules of pizza making also for the calzone, and prepare one filled with caramelized fruits? I mean, what could go wrong with that? Well, I have news for you: NOTHING could wrong with that. On the contrary, you have yourself a delicious desserts that is easy to make, and enormously satisfying...

"Sweet surprise" - calzone with caramelized apples, raisins and pine nuts
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Sweet surprise

This is the perfect way to end a home made pizza night. You can use any pizza dough you are happy with, even those you can buy at supermarkets. I personally use Jim Lahey's no-knead pizza dough recipe, and it works well: you can find it here. You may also choose to make two smaller calzones with the same ingredients, rather than a single big one. It is up to you. Use parchment paper: this will help you ease the calzone in and out of the oven, and it will prevent the calzone to stick to whatever pan you are using. And do not omit the confectionery sugar at the end: it is incredible the difference it makes...


Ingredients (1 calzone serves 2 people)

• Two apples, peeled and cut into 0.5 in (1 1/2 cm) cubes
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 3 tbsp sugar (I use 2 tbsp of brown sugar and 1 tbsp of regular sugar)
• 1/4 cup of amaretto (or brandy)
• a handful of pine nuts 
• a handful of brown raisins
• enough pizza dough for a single margherita pizza (if you don't have your own dough recipe, look here)
• 1 tbsp confectioners sugar 

How to make it

• Heat the oven to 500 F (260 C). 
• Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the apples, the raisins, the pine nuts and stir, to coat them all in butter. Cook for 10-15 minutes, stirring regularly, until the apple are golden brown, and are soft, but not soft enough to break down. 
• Add the sugar, stir and cook for 3-5 minutes, or until the sugar has melted and has coated the fruits. Take off the fire and set aside. 
• Using a dough roller, shape a disk as if you were preparing a pizza margherita (around 12 inches/30 cm). Place the dough on parchment paper. I usually put the parchment paper on a wood cutter, that I then use as a pizza peel to ease the parchment paper (and whatever is on it) into the oven.
• Place the apple mixture on one side of the dough, leaving at least 1 cm from the border. Pull the other side of the dough onto the filling, as if to make a turnover. Make sure the borders overlap, then seal them by rolling them up towards the filling, so as to avoid the filling to come out.  
• Bake for 15-20 minutes on a preheated pizza stone or any pan. If you think the top of the calzone is becoming too brown, cover it with aluminium foil. 
• Take it out, sift the confectionery sugar on top of it, cut it and enjoy it.