Personal Pizzas

• Pizza crust
• Pizza sauce
• Bite-size and shredded toppings
• Round or rectangular pans (optional)
• Pizza stone (optional)

• Divide pizza dough into single-size portions or take a whole pizza crust and designate a section for each kid.
• An efficient way to make a lot of individual pizzas: pat most of the dough into a large rectangle and make a grid pattern with strips of remaining dough. Let kids fill the grids with the toppings of their choice. When the pizza is baked, use a pizza wheel or large knife to cut along the grid lines.
• Explore other pizza shapes. How about hearts, flowers, bears, fish or even kid-shaped pizzas?
• Make individual pizza pockets--or calzones--by spreading half a round of raw pizza dough with sauce and toppings, leaving a 1-inch border. Fold the other half over and seal the edges by pressing the dough together with a fork. Brush with olive oil and bake.
• For a quick and easy pizza night, start with pre-baked pizza crust or make your pizza dough ahead of time.

Try these kid-pleasing pizzas:

• Bake pizza on a pizza stone. This distributes the heat evenly for a sensational crust. No pizza stone? Use unglazed terra cotta tiles from a garden store.
• Preheat your oven. If you're using a pizza stone, start with a cold stone in the cold oven to prevent cracking the stone.
• Brush the pizza crust with olive oil before you add the toppings.
• A layer of cheese over the top keeps the other ingredients from scorching.
• If you use a peel (a wide, flat, long-handled wooden paddle) to transfer pizza to and from the oven, sprinkle it with cornmeal first to keep the dough from sticking. No peel? Use a flat cookie sheet instead and protect your hands with oven mitts.
• Watch out for topping overload: if the kids lay it on too thickly, the pizza crust will be soggy.

More great pizza tips: