Personal Pizza Making

PERSONAL PIZZA: “Pizza Wednesday” is always one of the most popular cooking activities in our Summer camp programs. Each student creates his or her own pizza the way they want it. I use cheese and pepperoni as toppings but you could add anything you liked. The children enjoy this project thoroughly and often repeat it at home.





HOW TO PRESENT IT TO YOUR GROUP: 1. Preheat oven to 400 F. 2. Cut English muffins in half. 3. Put grated cheese and cut-up pepperoni on several plates. 4. Have everyone wash their hands. 5. Demonstrate the making of a pizza by putting sauce on an English muffin, putting some cheese on and then artistically (portrait, landscape, face?) putting pepperoni on. 6. Explain that when they complete the pizza they should bring it to you at the pan and make sure that you put their name on the chart where it corresponds to the location of their pizza on the pan. 7. Talk about avoiding the spread of germs during communal cooking. No licking fingers without washing hands again, no grabbing bits of cheese and putting food and fingers in mouth. No licking spoons or forks. 8. Put a plate or paper towel in front of each student. 9. Put the paper plates with cheese and pepperoni in the center of tables so everyone can reach them. 10. Give each student an English muffin half. 11. Go around the table and give each student that wants one (some children do not want sauce) a “splort” of sauce. Have someone following behind you spreading the sauce. 12. Once their “splort” of sauce is spread, students can add whatever ingredients they want. Be aware that some students may not want sauce. 13. Put the full pans in the oven for 10-12 minutes.

THE LESSON: The children can be artistically creative in arranging the pepperoni and/or cheese on the pizza. I usually make a sample pizza that has a pepperoni smiley face. Applying heat to cheese changes the way the cheese molecules act (they melt); this is a good question to ask, as well as why heat makes the English muffin crust “crispy.”