What types of crust for dessert pizza?

[Pizzabro]

I'm curious what types of crust people are using for their dessert pizzas. Do you use the same dough recipes for more traditional pizzas or do you use something different that may go better with sweet toppings?

[The Dough Doctor]

As one who is a FIRM BELIEVER in the KISS principle I try not to make things any more difficult or confusing than necessary so I always use my regular white pizza crust dough formula, after opening the ball into a skin I brush it with melted butter and then sprinkle it with a cinnamon-sugar mixture and begin building my dessert pizza from there. Aside from being simple and easy to make I've also found that by using this method the pizzas bake very similar to my regular pizzas....assuming I'm not baking at HIGH temperatures.
When making dessert pizzas in a hot oven (over 600F) I have found that baking the pizza on a screen for most of the baking cycle helps to control crust color while allowing the pizza to be sufficiently baked.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[Pete-zza]

Pizzabro,

When I was playing around with Papa John's clone pizzas, I also took a stab at trying to reverse engineer and clone a couple of their dessert pizzas. In my case, and in keeping with Tom's remarks, I could have used the PJ clone dough formulation that was closest to the PJ formulation that I was trying to reproduce, but since that dough would have taken up from about 5-8 days to be ready to use, I used an "emergency" PJ clone dough version to speed things up. In that version, the dough formulation was similar to the basic one but I chose to use honey instead of sugar (and I also relied on the PJ nutrition facts for the dessert pizzas). You can see what I ended up with for the PJ clone dessert pizzas:

Reply 107 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg80757#msg80757, and

Reply 131 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg80989#msg80989.

For comparison purposes, I even bought a dessert pizza from a local PJs. I assume they used the same dough as they used for their regular pizzas but using a smaller dough ball. You can see a photo of the PJ dessert pizza I bought at:

Reply 127 at https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=6758.msg80932#msg80932.

Peter

[The Dough Doctor]

Peter;
While I cannot say too much about PJ's, I can confirm your suspicion that they do not use a special dough for their dessert pizza.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

[almabts]

Found One Recipe

Pizza Crust:
1 cup warm (105F) water
2 cups flour
1−1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

Fruit Filling:
1 − 21 oz. can pie filling (cherry, blueberry, or apple)

Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup quick oats
1/2 cup firm butter or margarine
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Vanilla Glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoon Milk
1 tablespoon Melted margarine or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine yeast and warm water and let proof for 3 minutes. Add to
other crust ingredients in a large bowl and knead for 10 minutes.
Cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for about 12 hours.
Preheat oven to 500F. Roll the dough on a floured surface until it
is about the diameter for your 16 inch pizza pan. Place in pan and
form the dough to the edge. Brush with vegetable oil and prick with
fork. Prebake for 3 minutes. Remove from the oven and spread with
pie filling. Mix crumb topping ingredients with a fork or pastry
blender. Spoon over pie filling. Return pizza to the oven and
continue to bake for 10−15 minutes or until crust is light golden
brown. Remove and drizzle with vanilla glaze.

[Jiraya]

I use a modified Neapolitan dough
500 g 00 flour
1.5 g yeast
10 g salt
1 bottle Guinness Stout
Mix till the side of the mixing bowl are clean, then cold ferment 24 hours then weigh out 270-275 g balls