Personal Pan Pizza Party & Copycat Recipe

We keep it simple around here for birthdays. I think with five kids, I just can't see getting into themed parties and such. I want to build birthday traditions, make the day fun and special but avoid stress. I've learned through experience if I try to "go big" for parties that my focus gets all crazy and off and I am short-tempered even with the birthday child. So, we usually have a few fellow expats over, order Pizza Hut and have a little cake and ice cream. But since moving we are no longer in a Pizza Hut delivery service, I decided to branch out and make our own. This was a fun activity to do with the kids and it may be a new birthday tradition. If you are neat freak, this is not the party for you. The birthday girl had to do a wardrobe change mid-party.A few tips to make the party run smooth:

Make the dough ahead of time. You can actually make it the day before, wrap in plastic and store in the fridge for party time. You can even divide each portion out and wrap individually.
We can not get pork products (which in my opinion makes a pizza) but I made a mock chicken italian sausage and triangles of smoked beef.
I asked the other two girls that were coming over to bring their own 9 inch cake plates. I still didn't have enough for all my kids, so I used a 9 inch square pan. They worked just as well.
The dough has to rise for about an hour. We used that time to clean up the mess and open up presents and eat cake. Yes, we actually ate cake before we had pizza. You get to break the rules on birthdays.
I spooned out the portions of sauce on the individual pizza crusts...quantity control.
We made a large pizza for the adults whom all wanted supreme style pizza. This was something "special" for the birthday girl to put together.

Works of art, they are! (Yoda?)They got gobbled up so fast and I didn't get a proper picture of the end result. Let that be testament of its deliciousness.[yumprint-recipe id='6'] Pin this for later!activate javascriptactivate javascript