Braided Calzones

The other night we had a bunch of family in town and so my uncle and I made calzones! It was a fun way to make a classic meal but be able to customize it for each family member! 

We used homemade pizza dough and a homemade pizza sauce and they were both fantastic! 

Here is the recipe for the dough... I'll post our pizza sauce in the next post!
And don't worry about how complicated it looks to braid them like this! I'm including step by step pictures and I promise it really isn't all that hard!

Braided Calzones

Calzone Dough

(Recipe Adapted from Allrecipes.com and Amy's Cafe)

Makes four personal-size calzones or one large calzone.

1 C lukewarm water

1 pkg. active dry yeast

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. dry milk powder

3 C bread flour

3 Tbsp. olive oil (aprox.) plus more for drizzle

1 egg (beaten)

2 tsp. water

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the water, yeast, salt and sugar and stir to combine. Set aside for 15 minutes and then stir in (with dough hook attachment) the dry milk powder, flour and olive oil and mix until a dough forms. Turn onto a floured surfact and knead for ten minutes (seriously, knead it for that long!). The dough should feel smooth and elastic. Drizzle olive oil over outside of dough to cover and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and place in a warm place for 1-2 hours - or until doubled in size.

Beat down the dough and split into four balls. Place into a 9x13, cover, and let rise again for 15 minutes.

Roll out each ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and shape into a rectangle. 

Side tip: When I rolled out the dough... it helped to become a professional pizza thrower and toss my dough! ha!

Transfer to a cookie sheet, especially if you are doing one giant one. Spoon pizza sauce (check out next post for homemade pizza sauce recipe) onto the middle of the calzone and then top with your favorite pizza toppings (pepperoni, sausage, red onions, red peppers, black olives, mushrooms...)  

and finally cover with cheese! Now for the braiding part: using a sharp knife, make diagonal cuts one inch apart, down both long sides of the rectangle. Don't cut all the way to the fillings. 

To wrap it up, fold up the bottom and starting at the bottom and alternating sides, overlap the strips of dough onto the filling in a lattice pattern. Stretch the pieces all the way to the other sides and tuck the strips underneath the filling. Pretend you are wrapping up a baby!

The above picture is what happens if you cut the strips too close to the filling - the filling will kind of burst out of the dough. 

And ta da! (At the top, just kind of do the same and fold it over and tuck it all in... I haven't found a good way to end it yet)

Brush calzone with an egg wash (1 egg beaten with 2 tsp. water). And bake at 375 degrees for 20 (several small calzones) or 30 (one large calzone) minutes. 

We topped the calzones with the leftover pizza sauce so add even more flavor :)