Foodie Friday: Creme Fraiche Pizza

I am in love with this pizza. We are talking make-two-times-in-one-week kind of love. I think it is the creme fraiche. Perhaps it is it that I am currently into cream based flavors with lime, like the New Year’s soup I made. Or maybe it is as simple as it is different and different can feel so fresh.

This pizza is sweet. Sweet because I picked produce that sweetens when cooked: shallots, corn and cherry tomatoes. Yet, it is balanced with a slight tang from the bites of goat cheese and the squeeze of lime.

The real star is the creme fraiche. It has that same gooey goodness that cheese on pizza can have, but manages to make the crust softer and creamier than typical. I think the toppings don’t matter as much as just this cream based sauce. I can picture this same pizza in the late summer topped with lots of thin zucchini and squash slices and a ton of fresh herbs. Or just going classic with my all time favorite of mushroom and olives.

The other lovely thing is how simple this pizza is to make. You can go all out and make your own pizza dough, cut your own corn kernals and make creme fraiche. I did none of those things this time around. I’m very curious to try making my own creme fraiche and do find making pizza dough to be no problem. But this time it was all about the ease. Smaller pieces of this would also make an excellent appetizer. You know, if you like impressing your guests and all.

Creme Fraiche Pizza
(adapted from Sprouted Kitchen)

Ingredients
Pizza dough
8 oz creme fraiche, room temperature, (less if you want the pizza less saturated with creaminess)
4 oz goat cheese, add more if you really want to taste the goat cheese
smoked paprika
1 shallot, sliced thinly
1 ear of corn, kernels removed or 1 cup frozen corn, defrosted
1/2 cup quartered cherry tomatoes
Handful of cilantro, finely chopped
Half a lime

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 500′. Make your dough if needed.

2) Either roll out your dough to your preferred crust thickness or hand toss it to desired size. (Did anyone else have jobs in high school like Linz and I where we learned to toss our pizza crust?!). Once at desired size, add pizza to either stone slab or cookie tray that is lined with parchment paper.

3) First add the creme fraiche. Followed by a pinch of smoked paprika over the top. Distribute the corn, shallots and tomatoes or the pizza. Add the goat cheese. There are two ways to do this. I liked adding bits of goat cheese all over the pizza, which created random bites of it. The goat cheese could also be mixed with the creme fraiche and spread over the dough first thing (I would up the goat cheese and decrease the creme fraiche, if you try this).

4) Bake for 12-15 minutes. Once cooked, leave in for another minute on broil.

5) Once cooled to eat, sprinkle with cilantro and squeeze lime juice over slices.

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