Apple Pizza has cinnamon spiced apples nestled on an easy, pillowy crust, and topped with a buttery cinnamon streusel. It’s like an apple pie in pizza form! Drizzle this beauty with salted caramel sauce for a truly perfect dessert.
Why you’ll love this Apple Pizza:
- Tender, Spiced Apples РFresh, crisp apples are saut̩ed in a bit of butter, with plenty of cozy fall spices, until tender and delicious.
- Buttery Cinnamon Streusel – A pile of crisp streusel compliments the tender apples beautifully! Whip up your streusel in Oster’s 3-in-1 Kitchen System with Texture Select Settings, using the food processor cup, for ease.
- Salted Caramel Sauce – Luscious caramel sauce is the perfect finishing touch on this delicious dessert!
Put a fun spin on pizza night with this Apple Dessert Pizza! It’s an easy recipe and always a crowd pleaser. This dessert will be your new favorite thing to bake this season.
Be sure to check out my make-ahead tips below to help make it even easier, too.
Ingredient Overview:
- Apples – Don’t use soft apples like McIntosh as they’ll become soggy. Use any good baking apple like honeycrisp, pink lady, golden delicious, or granny smith apples.
- Butter – I always use salted buter for the best flavor, but feel free to use unsalted butter if you prefer.
- Spices – Cozy fall spices compliment the apples so well – don’t skimp on them!
- Heavy Cream – This is sometimes called heavy whipping cream at the grocery store – they’re the same thing.
Ingredient Substitutions:
- Dairy-free – I haven’t tested this recipe dairy-free, but it should work fine with dairy-free butter sticks.
- Salted Caramel Sauce – Feel free to use store bought in a pinch, although my homemade recipe takes just 3 ingredients and 10 minutes!
How to Make this Apple Pizza Recipe Step-by-Step:
Step 1: Make the Homemade Pizza Dough. In a medium bowl, let your yeast activate with warm water & sugar – it should look foamy and like it has sort of “bloomed”. If nothing happens to the granules of yeast, they are duds – throw it out and try again with a fresh package of yeast.
Stir the flour, olive oil, cinnamon, and salt into the yeast mixture to form a shaggy dough. Knead it for a few minutes, then let it rise for an hour while you prepare the rest of the recipe.
Step 2: Make the Streusel. Mix up your streusel in a food processor for speed and ease! See alternative by hand in recipe card below.
Step 3: Make the Apple Filling. Cook apple slices in a medium saucepan until tender. Adding a pinch of flour helps thicken the juices so we don’t end up with a soggy pizza.
Step 4: Assemble & Bake the Apple Pizza. Gently press the risen dough into a greased 9-inch pan. Add your pizza toppings – the apple slices and streusel. Bake as directed in the recipe card below.
Let the dessert pizza rest for 10-15 minutes before drizzling with salted caramel sauce and digging in! You will love this delicious apple pizza – it’s like a warm apple crisp in pizza form.
Expert Success Tips:
- Don’t Over bake – Follow the baking instructions given in the recipe card below for best results. This pizza has a relatively short bake time, but it’s the perfect amount of time to bake everything without over baking.
FAQs:
I don’t recommend making the full pizza ahead, as the best way to enjoy it is fresh from the oven. You can, however, make the streusel a day ahead, storing it in the fridge in an airtight container. The caramel sauce can also be made up to 2 weeks ahead.
The crust is closer to a thick crust pizza. It’s the perfect amount of crust to filling!
Recipe Variations:
- Caramel Sauce – Feel free to use store bought caramel in a pinch. But promise that next time, you’ll try my homemade sauce!
- Lemon Juice – Feel free to add 1/2 tsp of lemon juice to the apple filling if desired.
- Store-Bought Dough – Use a ball of store bought dough in a pinch.
Serving + Storing this Recipe:
Enjoy while warm from the oven! Add caramel sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you’re feeling extra decadent. This apple pizza recipe is best fresh from the oven, but leftovers can be stored in in an airtight container in the fridge for 2-3 days.
Special Tools:
- Deep Dish Pie Plate – Use a deeper pie plate for this recipe to hold all the toppings in. You can also use a deep dish pizza pan of similar size, but keep an eye on it because a metal pan will bake the pizza a bit more quickly.
- Food Processor – You don’t need to have one, but I love making the crumble topping in a food processor to keep it quick!
More Easy Recipes with Apples to Love:
- Caramel Apple Cider Cookies
- Salted Caramel Apple Galette
- Cranberry Apple Crisp
- Homemade Apple Fritters
- Puff Pastry Apple Turnovers
- Apple Cider Old Fashioned Cocktails
- The Best Recipes to Make During Apple Season
More Dessert Pizza Recipes:
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Caramel Apple Dessert Pizza
Ingredients
For the Salted Caramel Sauce
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 6 tbsp salted butter, cubed
- 1/2 cup +1 tbsp heavy cream
- pinch of flaky sea salt
For the Pizza Dough
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1 and 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 163 grams
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
For the Cinnamon Streusel
- 3 tbsp cold salted butter, cubed
- 2 tbsp + 1 tsp olive oil
- 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
For the Apple Filling
- 2 tbsp salted butter
- 2 large apples, sliced into 1/2" slices Or 3 medium apples. About 4 cups, 430 grams, or 1 lb slices in total
- 3 tbsp brown sugar, packed
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- pinch of salt
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Make the Caramel Sauce: Make the caramel sauce by following my recipe here up to 2 weeks ahead and store in the fridge until ready to serve the pizza.
- Make the Pizza Dough: Combine sugar and warm water (105° F to 115° F) in a large bowl and whisk together. Add the yeast and don't mix – let sit for 5 minutes. It should be kind of creamy and foamy looking. Stir in the flour, olive oil, cinnamon, salt, and vanilla until a shaggy dough forms. Knead the dough for 5 minutes on a lightly floured surface. Set a timer! Gently shape the dough into a ball and place in the same bowl, sprayed with nonstick spray, and cover with a kitchen towel to rise for 1 hour.
- Make the Streusel:Â While the dough rises, make the streusel. Pulse all streusel ingredients together in the bowl of a food processor on high until crumbly and clumping together. Alternatively, whisk up the dry mixture and cut in the cold cubed butter until you have a crumbly mixture. Set aside.
- Preheat Oven: Heat oven to 425° F so it's ready for baking by the time you finish making the filling and assembling the pizza.
- Make the Apple Filling: Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. (Let it go a few extra minutes if you want browned butter.) Add the apple slices and remaining apple filling ingredients. Cook for 4 minutes, stirring lazily, then stir in the flour. Cook for 4-6 more minutes, until apples are slightly softened but still have a slight hint of crunch.
- Assemble & Bake: Plop the risen dough into the greased pan and press it out and up the sides a bit. Spoon the apples (leaving behind any excess liquid, which there really shouldn't be) over the crust and sprinkle the streusel on top. It may seem like a lot of streusel but use it all. Bake for 17-19 minutes. The edges of the crust and the streusel will be golden brown. You can lift the edge of the pizza up with a lifter to see if the bottom and sides looked baked through if you're unsure.
- Serve + Store: Drizzle caramel sauce over the warm pizza and enjoy! This is best hot from the oven, but leftovers can be covered + stored in the fridge for a 2-3 days.
Nutrition
Jennifer devine says
Delicious and Easy. I cheated and used store bought salted caramel sauce.
Stephanie Simmons says
Glad you enjoyed this dessert pizza, Jennifer! 🙂