Searching for a thick crust pizza or simply bored of cinnamon rolls? Roll the dough with pizza sauce to enjoy life to its fullest!

Pizzas are everywhere in all forms and shapes. Some are gluten free others are low carbs with unimaginable variety of toppings and probably shapes as well.

It seems that calling something pizza only means to pour tomato sauce on top with a bit of shredded cheese and it’s done. So as we all know, thanks to the US Congress amazing law makers, that pizza sauce is basically a vegetable, we can happily snack on it without any remorse of our health.

The best thing is, in pizza sauce is being a vegetable, that we can apply the same principle for a ton of different shapes as well giving us an almost never ending pleasureful way to stay healthy and enjoy life on the way.

We already tried out the pizza monkey bread with great success and plenty of sauce all over and inside the pullable little dough bags. Not to mention the plain tear and share bread that are basically little square pizzas stuck on each other.

The drawback on the above mentioned pizzas is that none of them get enough out of the staple of true Mediterranean pizzas the golden brown cheese on top. This is because there isn’t enough physical space per slice to cover them with enough cheese.

Sure enough cheese can be stuffed inside the dough with the sauce but that won’t get scorched by the cruel dry heat of our oven before the dough burns to black. As we don’t want to do that, we must be content with hot gooey cheese or the tiny scraps on top of our slices.

The solution is to the scarce cheese situation is, to make greater upper surfaces that can hold enough cheese for us to be content with. One of the many shapes and techniques that we could apply is, to roll the dough up then slice it essentially making pinwheels or rolls.

The dough is the same as we use with the pizza monkey bread or tear and share pizza bread but with the only difference of making rolls instead of bags or slices.

The sauce, we can use to fill the rolls is also the same as any other of the pizza sauce, we like best.

The traditional Italian way of making the pizza sauce is as plain as mashing tomatoes by hand until there is a consistent sauce at our disposal. This method however is kind of time consuming and some opt to use blenders of some sort to quicken up the process.

The less traditional ones even go as far as using canned pureed tomatoes. The tiny little problem with canned tomatoes is that the majority of them contain added acid and salt to extend their shelf life. The worst ones even have added sugar to counter the sour taste caused by the preservatives.

Anyway, none can be as bad as using ketchup instead of any of the before mentioned sauce ingredients, not to mention that ketchup is definitely can’t count as a vegetable by any means.

The tomato sauce can be used raw or also cooked and flavored with some secret spices of choice. To counter the naturally or unnaturally present acidity in tomato, we can even caramelize a bit of onion and use that to liven up the heart and soul of our pizzas.

Ingredients

Dough

3½ cup / 600g Flour
7 tablespoon / 100g Butter (sliced)
1 Egg
1¼ cup / 300ml Milk
0.5 oz / 15g Fresh yeast

Filling

16 oz / 500g Tomatoes or Tomato puree
6 Basil leaves (fresh) or 1 teaspoon dried
1 sprig Oregano (fresh) or 1 teaspoon dried
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup / 100ml Olive oil

Topping

7 oz / 200g Cheese (Gouda, Edam, Mozzarella)

Kitchen utensils

8½” x 3″ / 22cm x 7.5cm Baking tray (minimum size)

How to make Pizza roll

Bread

In a kneading bowl measure the flour, sliced butter, egg, milk and crumbled fresh yeast.
Knead it well together.
Cover the bowl and leave it in a 68°F – 81°F /20°C – 27°C place for about an hour to rise. (We can put it in an oven that was turned on to 100°F / 40°C briefly. Be careful not to turn the heat higher than that as it would kill the yeast so the dough won’t rise.)

Filling

In the meantime, prepare the filling. Chop tomatoes, basil, oregano, salt and olive oil in a blender.
Pour it into a saucepan, bring it to boil and simmer it in low-medium heat for about 20 minutes while stirring occasionally.
Take it off heat and set it aside. Pouring hot sauce on the dough, would make it gooey and so hard to handle that it would ruin our day.

For more detailed explanation about How to make tomato sauce check out the Low Carb Condiments

Assembly

After an hour waiting take dough out of the bowl onto a well-floured work surface.
Roll it into a square. Flouring underneath the dough is important as this coating will prevent it to stick down.
Spread tomato sauce evenly on top then roll dough up into a log. Cut crosswise into 1″ / 2cm wide pieces.
Place the pieces apart on the baking tray.
Cover the pizza rolls and let them rise for another half an hour. Sprinkle cheese on top before popping it into the 350°F / 180°C preheated oven.
Bake them for about 20 minutes or until the cheese it melted and golden brown.