Italian flavors with a twist in one delicious spicy goat cheese pesto pizza loaded with fresh cherry tomatoes, mozzarella and black olives. I could eat this pizza every day!

Wow, the summer this year. I can’t complain. Sunny weather, nice breeze and Aperol spritz in the evenings – what else could I wish for? The baby is sleeping very well so far, during the night as well as the day and his playtimes are getting longer. Finally! I absolutely love singing to him with his curious eyes on me all the time 🙂

In a couple of days we’re heading for some much needed vacations beside a beautiful lake under the mountains. Even though we love the seaside, we’re more of a lake and river type of swimmers. We love the sunny beaches and the waves by the sea, but hate the salt. The place we’re going to is quite isolated with just a couple of vacation houses nearby. So hopefully we’ll get some peace and quiet.

Okay back to the recipe. I have a ton of basil in the garden. A couple of years ago I sowed an entire bag of seeds in one small pot and it turned out the best idea ever. Why? Because you can start picking basil as soon as it starts growing leaves. Of course it’s way too crowded and I pick the whole plants in the begining to decrowd the pot. I leave some to grow into big bushy plants.

Basil was the whole inspiration for this recipe. I love pesto esecially with basil. I tried making it with goat cheese and it is seriously delicious. Add some mozzarela, tomatoes and olives and put all of them on the best pizza dough and you’ve got a treat. I included an amazing and very easy pizza dough recipe, but you can use your own. My whole-grain spelt dough would work just as well.

This pizza dough rises slowly in the fridge for a day and it is the best pizza dough I’ve made to this date. In fact most pizza places will make the dough in advance as well. Slow rise at low temperatures makes the dough nice and elastic, so you can strech it out very thinly. I didn’t do this with this pizza, but I love making it super thin for my tomato sauce pizza only. Which reminds me… I should totally share the recipe.

Second thing with making your pizza dough perfect is high temperature. Although I sometimes bake it at 230°C only, to make it more bready. Again look at the photos, the dough turns out looking something like that. If you crank up the temperature you’ll get an even crunchier crust. One thing I always do is place the baking tray in the oven when I turn it on, so it heats uo nicely. A pizza stone would be an even better option, but I don’t have one (yet) 🙂

I’ll stop babbling and get to the recipe. Have a lovely day you guys!

5 from 1 vote

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Servings 4 people

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

4 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 sachet of yeast (7g)
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp salt

Goat Cheese Pesto

1 cup chopped basil
30 g mild goat cheese
20 g parmesan
3 TBSP pine nuts
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp chilli flakes
3 TBSP olive oil (or more if necessary)

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

pizza dough
goat cheese pesto
400 g mozzarella
500 g cherry tomatoes
100 g black olives
2 tsp chilli flakes
basil for decoration

Instructions

Pizza Dough

Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer or by hand. Knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and soft, but not sticky.
Slightly oil a big bowl with at least double the volume of the dough. Leave the dough rest in the bowl covered with plastic wrap for about an hour or until double the size.
Knead again and return to the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and save in the fridge for 24 hours. Be sure to use a large bowl, because the dough will continue rising in the fridge!
Remove from the fridge, divide the dough into four an knead again to for four balls. Cover with a cloth and leave at room temperature at least an hour before using the dough.

Goat Cheese Pesto

Place all ingredients except basil into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add basil and pulse for a few more seconds.

Spicy Goat Cheese Pesto Pizza

Preheat the oven to 230°C or preferably as hugh as your oven goes leaving the baking tray or pizza stone in the oven. If using pizza stone make sure you leave it in the oven long enough to be extremely hot.
Uncover the dough, but don't knead again from this point on. Use a small amount of flour to spread the dough into a desired shape. In this recipe form a 20 cm circle with a thick edge.
Spread basil pesto over the thin center of the dough and cover with sliced or pulled-appart mozzarella. Top with cherry tomatoes, black olives and chilli flakes.
Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the crust.
Decorate with more basil leaves before serving.