Topped with cured ham, black olives, artichoke and mushrooms, pizza capricciosa is a classic, traditional and well loved pizza dish.

If you are asking me, pizza capricciosa is the mother of all pizzas. You can never go wrong with mushrooms, ham, olives, and artichokes - it's the most perfect blend of salty umami flavours that have ever happened to pizza.
What is capricciosa?
Capricciosa is Italian that translates to 'capricious' and that really works as a name for this pizza because the ingredients vary slightly from restaurant to restaurant - the staples are tomato sauce, mozzarella, ham and artichoke, and variables are black olives, anchovies and cooked egg, for the most part. The one thing that can be agreed on though, is using the best and freshest ingredients if you want a truly mind blowing pizza experience.
How to make the best pizza capricciosa
The flavour of a pizza is very much tied to the flavour of the tomato sauce. As a rule, I never use jarred tomato sauce on my pizza - they have too much sugar for my taste. Whenever I make a batch of my homemade tomato sauce I always freeze some in ice cubes tray and then store in a freezer bag for easy pizza making. The flavour is fresh and delicious, just like at my favourite pizza restaurants, and the perfect base to build the best pizza.
Next we have the cheese. A great pizza needs great cheese. When it's available, I always reach for a ball of buffalo mozzarella, otherwise, a ball of fresh mozzarella will do. This is important if you want a traditional texture and flavour to your pizza - the taste and how the cheese melts is so much better than your average stick of mozzarella.
For the rest of your toppings choose quality as well. Buy real black olives (not the tasteless sliced ones in a can) and buy a quality brand of Italian ham.
I used pizza dough from my local bakery for this pizza and I rolled it into a thicker crust. If you like more of a thin crust pizza, check out my thin crust pizza dough.
How to Make it
Roll out your pizza dough to fit a pizza pan then fold it in half and then half again to form a cone shape.
Dust your pizza pan with cornmeal so that the dough doesn't stick to it, then place the tip of the folded dough in the center of the pan and unfold it.
dust with cornmeal add the pizza dough
Spread the sauce around the dough, then top with the sliced mozzarella.
Add the sliced mushrooms and the prosciutto or ham.
Then top with the artichokes and sliced olives.
Finally, bake in your oven at 500℉ for 12-15 minutes. The pizza is done when the cheese is all melty and the crust has browned.
More Recipes You'll Love!
If you like this pizza capricciosa, you might want to check out some of our other Italian recipes!
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Pizza Capricciosa
Ingredients:
- 1 pizza dough
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- 6 oz fresh mozzarella cheese - thinly sliced
- 1 cup sliced cremini mushrooms
- 1⁄4 cup sliced black olives
- 2 oz prosciutto cotto or prosciutto
- 5 artichoke hearts - quartered
- cornmeal
Instructions
- Roll out the pizza dough to fit your pizza pan.
- sprinkle pizza pan with cornmeal (so the crust doesn't stick) then fold your dough in half, then over again into quarters.
- Place the dough in the pan with the point at the centre then unfold into the pan.
- Add the sauce, cheese, mushrooms, prosciutto, artichoke, and black olives.
- Bake in your oven a the highest temperature. About 15 minutes for 500-550 degrees.
Nutrition
* nutritional information is calculated by online tools and may not be 100% accurate.
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