Clem's
Valentine's Day Pepperoni Roses
A quick one making something which has appeared online in several places. It is part oven-baked dough, part cheese pizza, and part cheese-pepperoni calzone. It all begins with thinly rolling out two pieces of pizza dough.
The first piece is cut into strips which will take half slices of pepperoni (2 inch diameter slices which have been cut into halves). The pepperoni slices are overlapped onto top of a dough strip. The slice is then coated with pizza tomato sauce and then layered thinly with shredded cheese (I use a Cheddar, Romano and Mozzarella blend). Thus prepared, the slice is then tightly rolled into a coil and edges of the dough strip are pinched to hold the contents in (and prevent unwrapping during the bake). A "rose" is thus formed.
A pizza dough strip
prepared with pepperoni and cheese
A "rose" formed after rolling up a loaded dough slice
After rolling up each slice, you may want to push the edges of the pepperoni slices outwards to help them look more like flower petals. Bake the "roses" in an oven at the highest possible temperature setting but keep watching out for burning. If the pepperoni begins to take on a dark colour before the dough has cooked well enough, lower the temperature and bake for longer. Remember to keep watch.
Thinly roll out the other pizza dough. You do not want this piece to be too thick as it will form the wrap and will be double layered in some places. Arrange the rolled out dough to take somewhat of a "V" shape to resemble what a bouquet of wrapped flowers might look like. Coat the dough with pizza tomato sauce and sprinkle shredded cheese over it (I used the same cheese blend again but added microplaned Parmigiano Reggiano on top). Add pepperoni slices on top of the cheese in the bottom half of the dough where it will be folded over. Then fold over the bottom of the "V" over each other to form the bottom of a flower bouquet wrap. Since this is a folded over pizza, it is essentially a calzone at the bottom of the assembly.
Carefully place the dough thus assembled (use a pizza peel or if unavailable, you can do the whole assembly on a pizza pan/plate which you then place together into an oven) into a pizza oven. I had my pizza stone at more than 400oC and the overhead flame at the lowest gas setting (Koda 2 14" gas pizza oven ). Bake to your degree doneness (colour and crispiness). You should then have something like this:
Clem's Valentine's Day
Pepperoni Roses
The rose "stems" are the stalks of baby broccolini
I forgot to add basil leaves amongst the roses and to tie a
ribbon around the wrap
HAPPY VALENTINE'S
DAY!
All my cooking (some without recipes) can be found here (click on each photo to go to that dish's page):
http://clemkuek.com/photoalbum/photo696.html
Video presentations can be found here:
14
February
2026
Created by Clem Kuek
