Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns + No-Cook Marinara Sauce + "Water You Cooking Up?" Flavored Water

Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns
Imagine taking all the cheesy, saucy goodness of a homemade pizza and rolling it up into cute, bite-sized doughy spirals that contain all the add-ins—on the inside! It’s like a cinnamon roll but savory, and each swirl is packed with kids’ favorite toppings: marinara sauce, cheese, bell pepper, mushrooms, or whatever else their hearts desire.
Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns are great anytime, but they really shine at family movie nights, sleepovers, and parties!
Happy & Healthy Cooking,
Shopping List
- DAIRY
- 1 C grated mozzarella or Swiss cheese **(see allergy subs below)**
- PANTRY
- 2 C all-purpose flour + extra for dusting **(see allergy subs below)**
- 2 tsp or 1 packet dry active yeast (instant yeast also works)
- 2 T granulated sugar or honey
- 2 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 T vegetable oil **
- 1 4-oz can tomato paste
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1 pinch granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp olive oil
- ROLL-INS—choose 2 or 3 **(Omit any options below if allergies present)**
- 1 C plant-based, meatless pepperoni
- 1 bell pepper (any color)
- 1 C mushrooms
- 1 C cherry tomatoes
- 1 eggplant
- 1 zucchini
- 2 T Italian seasoning
- 1 C ricotta cheese
- 1 handful of fresh basil
- HAVE ON HAND
- 3/4 C + 1 T water
- "WATER YOU COOKING UP?" FLAVORED WATER (OPTIONAL)
- 4 C water
- 2 C ice
- Choose 1 or more of the following fresh ingredients to flavor your water:
- 1 cucumber
- 1 lime
- 1 lemon
- 1 orange
- 1 mint sprig
Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills
- bake :
to cook food with dry heat, as in an oven.
- chop :
to cut something into small, rough pieces using a blade.
- knead :
to work dough by pushing, pulling, and folding it by hand or with a stand mixer.
- measure :
to calculate the specific amount of an ingredient required using a measuring tool (like measuring cups or spoons).
- mix :
to thoroughly combine two or more ingredients until uniform in texture.
- roll :
to use a rolling pin to flatten dough; use your hands to form a roll or ball shape; or move a round food, like a grape or a meatball, through another food, like sugar or breadcrumbs, to coat it.
- slice :
to cut into thin pieces using a sawing motion with your knife.
- stir :
to mix together two or more ingredients with a spoon or spatula, usually in a circle pattern, or figure eight, or in whatever direction you like!
Equipment Checklist
- Pitcher
- Cutting board
- Kid-safe knife
- Measuring cups
- Can opener
- Small mixing bowl
- Measuring spoons
- Wooden spoon
- Oven
- Muffin pan
- Large mixing bowl
- Liquid measuring cup
- Dry measuring cups
- Rolling pin, clean plastic bottle, or sturdy drinking glass (optional)
Ingredients
Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns
- 2 C all-purpose flour + extra for dusting **(for GLUTEN ALLERGY sub gluten-free/nut-free all-purpose flour)**
- 2 tsp or 1 packet dry active yeast (instant yeast also works)
- 2 T granulated sugar or honey
- 3/4 C water
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 C grated mozzarella or Swiss cheese **(for DAIRY ALLERGY sub dairy-free/nut-free cheese, preferably a white cheese variety)**
- 2 T vegetable oil **
- Roll-ins—choose 2 or 3: **(Omit any options below if allergies present)**
- 1 C plant-based, meatless pepperoni
- 1 bell pepper (any color)
- 1 C mushrooms
- 1 C cherry tomatoes
- 1 eggplant
- 1 zucchini
- 2 T Italian seasoning
- 1 C ricotta cheese
- 1 handful of basil
No-Cook Marinara Sauce
- 1 4-oz can tomato paste
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp garlic powder
- 1 pinch granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 T water
- 1 tsp olive oil
"Water You Cooking Up?" Flavored Water
- 4 C water
- 2 C ice
- Choose 1 or more of the following fresh ingredients to flavor your water:
- 1 cucumber
- 1 lime
- 1 lemon
- 1 orange
- 1 mint sprig
Food Allergen Substitutions
Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns
- Gluten/Wheat: Substitute gluten-free/nut-free all-purpose flour.
- Dairy: Substitute dairy-free/nut-free cheese, preferably a white cheese variety. Omit ricotta cheese roll-in option.
- Soy: Substitute canola oil or other nut-free high-smoking point oil for vegetable oil.
Instructions
Savory Swirled Baked Pizza Buns
intro
"Benvenuti" (Ben-veh-NOO-tee) or "Welcome" in Italian! This recipe is inspired by one of the most famous foods ever: Pizza! Typically, original Italian pizza is a simple combination of yeast-risen dough, tomato sauce, cheese, basil, and meats baked until the cheese is bubbling and the disk of dough is crisp. This Sticky Fingers Cooking® version is a little more silly. We will lay all our ingredients onto the dough disk, then roll, roll, roll. You can use a rolling pin to roll out the dough, a clean plastic bottle, or a sturdy drinking glass. The rolled dough will be baked in a muffin pan until it almost rises all the way out of the pan. The resulting Savory Swirled Pizza Bun looks like a cinnamon roll in shape, but it's filled with bubbling cheese and savory pizza toppings instead of cinnamon and sugar. "Buon appetito" (Bwohn ap-peh-TEE-toe) or "Enjoy your meal" in Italian!
measure + stir
In a large bowl, measure and add 2 teaspoons or 1 packet of dry yeast, 2 tablespoons sugar or honey, and 3/4 cup water. Stir the ingredients gently to combine. Let the mixture rest for 5 minutes. The yeast needs some time to eat the sugar and release CO2.
scrumptious science
Even though yeast looks like large grains of sand, it is actually a living organism. Yeast is a label broadly used to describe about 1,500 different kinds of fungi. This means that yeast makes up about one percent of the fungus you could come across in the world. The type we are using today is called active dry yeast. It means that the yeast is alive but sleeping in its container. To "wake up" the yeast, you will need to feed it its favorite breakfast: sugar! Once the yeast begins eating the sugar, it creates a byproduct: carbon dioxide. (I like to think of the yeast as burping little, itty bitty burps from eating the sugar too fast!) This carbon dioxide will later be trapped inside the pizza dough you are creating in this recipe, which is super important for making a light, fluffy texture.
measure + stir
In the bowl with the yeast, measure and add 2 cups flour and 2 teaspoons salt. Stir with a wooden spoon until a ball of dough forms. Dust the dough with a small amount of flour. Set aside.
chop + knead
Chop, measure, and prepare all the topping ingredients you purchased. All of the ingredients need to be cut into a large dice or smaller to fit into the pizza buns. Knead the ball of dough for 2 to 3 minutes or until springy in texture.
divide + roll
Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Flatten each piece of dough until you have 12 flat oval-shaped disks of dough. Then, add roughly 1 to 2 teaspoons of the toppings, 1 to 2 teaspoons of No Cook Marinara Sauce, and a sprinkle of cheese to each disk. Finally, roll them up from one end to the other. The tighter you roll the dough the better your pizza bun will turn out.
preheat + bake
Preheat your oven to 375 F. Drizzle 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil into the wells of a muffin pan, divided evenly. Then, place each rolled pizza bun into the oiled wells of the muffin pan. Slide the pan into the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until the buns are golden brown and puffed.
cool + devour
Remove the pizza buns from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes. Practice some Italian counting while you wait! 1 uno (OO-noh), 2 due (DOO-eh), 3 tre (treh), 4 quattro (KWAHT-troh), 5 cinque (CHEEN-kweh), 6 sei (SEH-ee), 7 sette (SET-teh), 8 otto (OHT-toh), 9 nove (NOH-veh), 10 dieci (dee-EH-chee). Once the pizza buns are cooled down, serve each bun with any extra marinara sauce and toppings on the side. "Cin cin" (Chin chin) or "Cheers" in Italian!
No-Cook Marinara Sauce
measure + mix
This recipe is super simple. All you have to do is dump all the ingredients into a bowl, mix them, and adjust the flavor and texture to your liking. Let’s dive in! Measure 1 can tomato paste, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 pinch of sugar, 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/4 teaspoon dried rosemary, 1 tablespoon water, and 1 teaspoon olive oil. Stir to combine. Take a small taste and adjust the flavor and texture to your liking by adding more oil, water, or seasonings.
dip + dunk + spread
Dip and dunk breadsticks in this super simple and delicious sauce, or spread it on top of pizza dough before baking! Buon appetito!
"Water You Cooking Up?" Flavored Water
chop + measure + stir
Choose the flavor of water you will be making. Simply slice whatever fresh ingredients you chose and place them into a pitcher. Measure and add 4 cups of water and 2 cups of ice. Stir a few times and then serve.

Hi! I'm Baker's Yeast!
"Did you know that I'm a living organism? If you add baker's yeast to dough, it will cause your bread, cinnamon rolls, doughnuts, and more to rise up! Just add me to warm water with a little sugar (which I love to eat) and wait at least five minutes until I burp some gas bubbles (excuse me!) and get foamy at the top before adding me to your flour and other ingredients!"
- Yeasts are single-celled, microscopic members of the fungus kingdom. Baker's yeast is from the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is the strain of yeast used to leaven (or raise) bread and other types of dough. It is also used in beer and winemaking.
- There are several varieties of baker's yeast: active dry yeast, compressed yeast, cream yeast, deactivated yeast, instant yeast, and rapid-rise yeast. Home bakers and Sticky Fingers Cooking chef instructors generally use active dry yeast, instant yeast, or rapid-rise yeast when baking.
- Active dry yeast must be activated by adding a warm liquid, like water or milk. Its granules are larger than the other dry yeasts, instant and rapid-rise, which do not have to be rehydrated (or proofed).
- The word "yeast" comes from the Old English "gist," of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root "yes-," meaning to "boil," "foam," or "bubble."
- Baker's yeast has some protein, fiber, B vitamins, and potassium; however, the amount you would get from a packet of active dry yeast distributed throughout a dough would be minimal.
- Nutritional yeast, a deactivated yeast, contains more protein, fiber, B vitamins, and potassium than active dry yeast. People who eat a vegan or vegetarian diet often add nutritional yeast to foods to supplement these nutrients and add a nutty or cheesy flavor to foods.
History of Pizza!

- Pizza-like flatbreads have been baked and eaten by people around the world for a long time; since the neolithic age, to be somewhat specific (the neolithic age dates as far back as 10,200 BCE!). One of the forerunners to pizza may have been Italian focaccia bread, a flatbread baked by Ancient Romans. The modern pizza was developed from these breads in Naples, Italy, sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century.
- A well-known story credits the Neapolitan pizza maker Raffaele Esposito for creating the first Pizza Margherita for Queen Margherita of Savoy’s visit to Naples in 1889. Tasked with cooking something suitable for the queen, Esposito retreated to his kitchen to prepare three different pizzas. The last pizza was a simple combination of tomato sauce, mozzarella, and basil, inspired by the Italian flag and its colors of red, white, and green. Queen Margherita enjoyed the pizza so much that she wrote Esposito a letter to tell him, which he used to promote his restaurant. It was the queen’s enthusiasm that jump-started the popularity of Pizza Margherita.
- Pizza came to the United States in the late 19th century, arriving with Italian immigrants. Since then, regional favorites have emerged. For example, there is Chicago-style deep-dish pizza with toppings typically added in reverse order: mozzarella cheese lines the crust, followed by other toppings, and then tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes, with a sprinkle of parmesan on top. New York pizza has large, thin, foldable slices. Detroit-style is a thick, square pizza. St. Louis pizza has a cracker-like crust, made without yeast, and its round shape is cut into 3 to 4-inch squares. And California pizza is known for its healthy and unusual toppings.
- The largest pizza ever produced was 13,580 square feet! It was completely gluten-free and made in Rome, Italy, in 2012.
Let's Learn About Italy!

- Italy became a unified country in 1861, only 150 years ago. It is sometimes called "bel paese" or "beautiful country."
- Italians invented the piano and the thermometer!
- In ancient Roman mythology, two twin brothers named Romulus and Remus founded Rome, Italy's capital city. The myth says the twins were abandoned and then discovered by a she-wolf before being found and raised by a shepherd and his wife. Eventually (and after many exciting adventures), they found themselves at the location of Palatine Hill, where Romulus built "Roma." The Italian wolf became Italy's unofficial national animal.
- In the 1930s and 40s, Mussolini, Italy's prime minister, and dictator tried to eliminate all foreign words from the Italian language. How did he do that? He just changed them! For example, in soccer, "goal" became "meta." Disney character names changed, too: Donald Duck became "Paperino;" Mickey Mouse became "Topolino;" and Goofy became "Pippo." Although they're not banned anymore, these words and names have stuck. So now if you go to the Italian Disneyland, called Gardaland Park, you will see Topolino and Pippo!
- About 60 million people call Italy home, and it is 116,350 square miles, slightly larger than the US state of Arizona. If you compare that to the United Kingdom, 67 million people live there, and it is about 94,350 square miles. So, the UK is smaller than Italy but has a bigger population!
- The Italian flag is green, white, and red. These colors represent hope, faith, and charity.
- The average Italian eats close to 55 pounds of pasta annually. If you think about how light pasta is, that is a considerable amount! There are more than 500 different types of pasta eaten in Italy today.
What's It Like to Be a Kid in Italy?
- Kids begin school at 6 years old. They grow up speaking Italian, but they learn English in school, so many become bilingual in Italian and English.
- The most popular sport for kids is football (soccer). The Italian word for soccer is "calcio," the same word they use for "kick." A favorite of younger kids is "Rody, the bouncing horse," a plastic horse that a small child can hop onto and bounce around the room. Rody was invented in Italy in 1984.
- The family ("la famiglia") is a central characteristic of Italian life. Children have great respect for their older relatives. It is traditional to name the first male child after the grandfather and the first female child after the grandmother.
- If kids live close to school, they can go home and have lunch with their families! Lunch at school might be pasta, meat with vegetables, a sandwich, or a salad with lots of ingredients. Families typically eat dinner later (7 to 8 pm), so kids end up staying up later, too!
- Between lunch and dinner, kids often enjoy "merenda," which is an afternoon snack that translates to "something that is deserved." It is really a mini-meal that can include both savory and sweet foods. Examples of savory foods are a salami or mortadella sandwich, a slice of rustic bread rubbed with a cut, raw tomato, or "pizza bianca" (white pizza without tomato sauce). Types of sweet foods eaten during merenda are "gelato" (a lower-fat type of ice cream), any kind of cake, or biscotti dipped in warm milk.