secret recipe club: breakfast pizza two ways

i can't believe that my little butterball's first birthday is about six weeks away. after planning two parties for his older brother, i've learned a few things about kids' parties - first birthday parties are really for parents & older siblings to get together and play, no one will blink an eye or miss a beat if you don't have a theme, as long as there's good food & things to keep kids busy, people will be happy. oh and most importantly, schedule around nap time. both for your kids and theirs. otherwise, either no one will come, they'll come late, or you'll be stuck with a bunch of grumpy children, including your own.

which brings me to this year's great idea: a saturday morning birthday party. parents and kids can come, eat some brunch, let their kids run around until they're tired enough for nap, and have the rest of the day to do whatever it is they need to get done. and really, is there anything better than brunch food?!

so for this month's secret recipe club, i was on a mission to find something that could be made quickly, easily, loved by parents and kids - we'll have a lot of toddlers at this party - and served room temperature. i had a hard time choosing between this breakfast pizza, these bacon & egg pastries (still on the short list for the party), and this overnight french toast casserole (another one - or some version of it - definitely on the list for the party) from nicole at daily dish recipes. honestly, i was all ready to whip up the french toast casserole when jason asked me what i was doing. as soon as i said "breakfast pizza" he jumped and asked when we could have it.

while many breakfast pizza recipes i've seen are simply pizza crust topped with eggs & cheese, this one's different. the crust is actually buttermilk biscuits, rolled out thin, topped with a homemade cheddar cheese sauce. it's as good as it sounds. since we have scrambled egg and over easy egg lovers in our house, i made one pizza each way - gooey overeasy eggs for me, hold the sausage, and scrambled eggs loaded with sausage for the boys. both were really good & the leftovers reheated well in the toaster oven the next day.

for more information on the secret recipe club, including the list of participating bloggers, featured recipes from members, and instructions on how to join, visit the secret recipe club website!
 

check out my previous secret recipe club posts: old fashioned sour cream donuts, italian sloppy joes, hard cider baked chicken & mushrooms, mini cinnamon roll cakes, double chocolate zucchini muffins with chocolate butter, butterscotch M&M oatmeal cookies, 30 minute baked tortellini, snickerdoodle bars & slow cooker chicken fajitas, meyer lemon iced raspberry yogurt cake & slow cooker chicken cacciatore, almond strawberry jam thumbprints, almond butter cookies, enfrijoladas, chocolate snack cake, bacon topped maple french toast cupcakes, cherry sorbet, slow cooker beans & mushrooms, mojito chicken tacos, maple glazed whole wheat spiced apple pizza, pig out cookies, pasta with blistered tomatoes & arugula and iced grapefruit cookies, mushroom barley soup, scalloped ham and potato bake & andes mint cake, chicken souvlaki with tzatziki, asian pork chops, lemon lime meltaways, blueberry peach crisp, minted lemon ice, white chocolate macadamia nut blondies, raspberry cream filled eclairs, jam swirled cheesecake, whole wheat grapefruit cake, chewy no bake granola bars & carrot cinnamon waffles, cannoli, gingerbread muffins, double chocolate peanut butter chip oatmeal cookies, butterscotch peach cake, whole wheat honey pancakes, minted pineapple lime agua fresca, breakfast tacos, simple almond sandwich cookies, & roasted banana rum cake.

breakfast pizza

crust adapted from baking illustrated & pizza adapted from daily dish recipes

1 hour, makes 2 pizzas and each easily serves 3-4

i made two round pizzas - one topped with 1/4 pound bacon & 3 overeasy eggs, the second topped with 1/4 pound bacon, 1 pound breakfast sausage, and 3 scrambled eggs. 

if you don't want to make your own biscuit dough for the crust, use one can of refrigerated biscuit dough. unroll it and roll out with a rolling pin until about 1/4 inch thick. this is what nicole did in the original recipe. 

for the crust:

1 cup cake flour

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, very cold, and cut into cubes

3/4 cup buttermilk, 2% or whole milk

for the pizza:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons flour

1 1/2 cups 2% or whole milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

6-9 eggs

1/2 pound bacon, cooked until crisp

1 pound breakfast sausage, cooked

grated parmesan cheese

1-2 green onions, thinly sliced

1. preheat your oven to 350F. get out two round pizza pans or two large baking sheets and set aside. 
2. to make the crust, add the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar) into a food processor and pulse until combined. add the butter and pulse until coarse crumbs, about 10 times. add the milk and pulse until the dough begins to form a ball, about 8 pulses. remove the dough and place on a floured surface. divide roughly in two. lightly flour all surfaces - counter top, rolling pin, hands - as the dough is sticky. roll the dough out into a circle or rectangle, to fit your pan, about 1/4 inch thick. fold about 1/4-1/2 inch of the dough on the edge back onto itself, creating a small lip, so eggs won't run off the edge when they are added later. transfer to one of the pans and bake for 5 minutes. while the first dough is baking, roll out the second dough the same way, and bake it 5 minutes. keep the oven on.
3. to make the sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium low heat. once melted, add the flour, and whisk until lightly browned, about 2 minutes. slowly add the milk, whisking constantly. cook over medium heat, whisking frequently, until thickened, a few minutes. once thick, remove from heat, season with salt & pepper, and whisk the cheddar cheese into the sauce until melted.
4. divide the cheese sauce between the two pizzas. for scrambled egg pizza, crack 3 eggs into a bowl and whisk them with a splash of cream/half&half/milk until blended. pour evenly over the sauce. for over easy eggs, crack 6 eggs on top of the cheese sauce, evenly spaced and top each lightly with salt & pepper. top pizzas with crumbled bacon and/or sausage. sprinkle each pizza lightly with parmesan cheese and green onions.
5. bake each pizza 10-12 minutes, or until the eggs are set (my overeasy eggs were really runny at 8-10min - keep an eye on them, they go from runny to thick quickly - & scrambled eggs set at 12min). serve hot. store leftovers in the refrigerator and heat up in a toaster or conventional oven.

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