4 Chef-Approved Ideas For Delicious Dessert Pizza

It can be reasonably opined that all pizza is good pizza, and even more so when you get creative with combinations of unique flavors. Dessert pizzas are an excellent way to indulge your sweet tooth in a shareable format, allowing you to divvy up a pie teeming with toppings. Tasting Table spoke to expert Tony Gemignani, 13-time World Pizza Champion and the chef and owner of a number of pizza restaurants including Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco to get his opinion on what makes the most delicious dessert pizza. Gemignani shared a few of his all-time favorite dessert pizza preparations, including a few seasonally-informed varieties, to inspire your own homemade versions.

Gemignani begins, "One is the heart shaped pizzas that we will sometimes serve at Tony's Pizza Napoletana in San Francisco on Valentine's Day." It's topped with Nutella, strawberries, and bananas. A similar seasonal standby is his Fourth of July pizza, which Gemignani calls the Triple Berry, topped with three different kinds of berries, a cannoli-like cream, and lemon zest. He also makes a limoncello-inspired pizza with thinly sliced lemons and "a light mozzarella finish with a sweet limoncello reduction and lime zest." And lastly, his apple strudel calzone filled with sauteed skinless honey crisp apples could rival just about any dessert empanada of your dreams.

Whether you cut yours into a heart, like the one at Tony's Pizza Napoletana, or stick with a standard round or square-shaped dough, this fabulous dessert pizza exemplifies the many creative ways to use Nutella. Per Gemignani, the toppings include a spread of Nutella with banana and strawberry pieces "and powdered sugar after the bake." The mouthwatering shareable is easy to replicate at home with the right ingredients.

If you're pressed for dough, try using a tortilla to bake your dessert pizza instead. It has the ideal consistency and taste to hold your favorite toppings without overpowering the dessert flavors. Take inspiration from this Nutella, banana, and strawberry pizza by swapping in raspberries for the strawberries or topping it with an extra drizzle of peanut butter sauce for an Elvis-inspired upgrade. You can even add a thin coating of fruity yogurt after baking for added nutritional value. Make your dessert pizza even more decadent with some carefully placed and brûléed mini marshmallows.

Gemignani describes his berry-filled tribute to the Fourth of July as featuring raspberries, blueberries, and boysenberries as well as, "a combination of ricotta and mascarpone cream," which he notes is like cannoli cream, all of which is topped with lemon zest. It's easy to see why this dessert is so irresistible between the trifecta or tremendous berries, a sweet and rich cream, and just the right amount of lemon zest to tie all the flavors together. You can easily make your own triple berry dessert pizza at home using either the same berries that Gemignani does or choosing your own favorites to mix things up.

If you aren't planning to follow a red, white, and blue color scheme in theme with the summer season, there's a lot you can do with the berry-laden dessert pizza that can include even more than three different kinds of fruit. Try strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries for a four-berry mixture that's out of this world. If the mascarpone and ricotta seems too heavy for you, opt for a plain or vanilla-flavored Greek yogurt as your spread. Cream cheese and strawberries would also make a wonderful cheesecake-inspired dessert pizza, particularly with a sprinkle of crumbled graham crackers on top.

The third style of dessert pizza Gemignani recommends is one that leans less sweet with more notes of tangy citrus and some mild savory flavors. His method is to add "thinly sliced lemons on top of a pizza with a light mozzarella finish." He tops this off with "a sweet limoncello reduction and lime zest." This pairing of citrus flavors and mild mozzarella cheese creates sophistication in every slice.

You can easily try your own version of this pizza using the same citrus fruits or changing up the flavors with thinly sliced tangerines, grapefruit, or calamansi. If you don't have limoncello, try making a citrus-infused simple syrup to swap in. For more sweetness than the mozzarella, try either mascarpone or burrata; even a simple mixture of farmer's cheese and the sweetener of your choice would go well with thinly sliced citrus fruits. Grill or candy these fruits prior to placing on your dessert pizza for an even more luxurious topping.

This last dessert pizza is actually a sweet calzone. Rather than making a flat pie, Gemignani's apple strudel-inspired dessert fills the dough with "sauteed skinless honey crisp apples tossed in butter and sugar with mozzarella and ricotta cheese." This is then finished with a topping of cinnamon and sugar. The sweet, pie-like filling and complementary savory cheeses mesh well together for a tasty treat, one that's even more portable than a pizza.

Somewhere between a hand pie, an empanada, and a turnover, there are a number of different filling and cheese options that you can choose from when making your own. For a more tart apple filling, try granny smith or braeburn apples. Toss the slices in butter and sugar or maple syrup for a hint of sweetness and include a light mozzarella or mascarpone cheese. You don't have to be limited to apples either — to make quicker work of your dessert calzone, try using canned peach or berry filling and combining it with a complementary cheese.