Barbeque Chicken Pizza

Remember when California Pizza was all the rage? It was years before it came to a city where I lived (Spokane & later Salt Lake). So, every time we visited Las Vegas, or California or Naples, FL (places we frequented for one reason or another in the 90's) we HAD to make a stop at CPK. My early favorite was Barbeque Chicken pizza. I also loved Thai pizza and one of our family favorites was BLT pizza. I found a recipe in the newspaper, and later found CPK had their own cookbook (find it on Amazon), and added it to the collection. Their pizzas are the thin crust type. Most pizza places let the crust or cheesy topping take center stage. A few times back in the experimental stages, I made bbq chicken pizza with thick crust (because I love a good thick crust pizza), but realized that thick crust and lots of cheese take away from other toppings in this case. I like the dough recipe attached. It's easy and makes about two 14-16" pizza crusts, or about 4 -8" crusts. If you are in a hurry, or making your own crust is too overwhelming, or you are a super-under achiever (sorry, had to throw that in) you can buy frozen bread dough, and roll it out really thin, or use a pre-made pizza crust. Sometimes, you can even talk one of those take and bake pizza places into selling you the crust-all rolled out.

Barbeque Chicken Pizza
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Dough:
1 1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 package yeast or 2 1/4 teaspoons
1 teaspoon sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
4-5 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt

Stir yeast and sugar into warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes until foamy.
In large bowl mix eggs and salt, add yeast mixture. Add flour a cup at a time, just until dough pulls away from bowl. If using mixer, continue mixing with dough hook attachment until smooth and elastic. Put dough in large oiled bowl, and sit in warm place for about 1 hour or until doubled.

Filling:
3 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped or shredded
barbeque sauce
2 1/2 cups shredded smoked Gouda cheese
2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup chopped red onion ( I like a little more)
1/2 cup chopped cilantro (same here)

Barbeque sauce:
2 cups ketchup
1-cup brown sugar
5-8 drops hot sauce
1 tsp dry mustard
1 clove garlic (optional)
3 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
ground pepper

Heat all ingredients in pan on stove. Add more sugar, hot sauce or garlic according to your taste.


To assemble:

Preheat oven to 425-450 degrees. Important to have the oven HOT when placing pizza in oven.
Place the chicken in about 1/4 cup barbeque sauce and let sit for a few minutes. Roll out the pizza dough into a 14" circle and place onto a pizza pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray or dusted with cornmeal. Spread about 3/4 cup of barbeque sauce onto the crust. Top with half of the chicken, half of the Gouda and mozzarella, red onion and cilantro. Repeat the process with the ingredients on the other crust. You should have two 14" crusts and assembled pizzas.
Bake at 425 for about 12-15 minutes on lower half of oven, or until cheeses are melted and bottom of crust is golden.

Tips:
-If you don't want to make your own sauce, I'm not going to lie- it won't be as good. If store bought is your only option, and you can't get your hands on any specialty bottled sauce, KC Masterpiece original works.

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