Chocolate Sundae Pizza

Chocolate Sundae Pizza
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
¼ tespoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup Hershey’s Syrup
1 quart ice cream (any flavor)
Sliced fresh fruit
Chocolate Carmel Sauce

*Heat oven to 370 degrees F. Grease 12-inch pizza pan. In large mixer bowl, beat shortening and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg; blend well.

*Stir together flour, cinnamon and salt; add to shortening mixture alternately with syrup, blending well. Pat dough evenly into prepared pan, forming a slightly thicker edge toward outside of pan. Bake 15-17 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched. Cool Completely.

*Cut into wedges; do not remove from pan. Place scoop icecream on each wedge. Arrange fruit around ice cream. Top with Chocolate Carmel Sauce.
Serve immediately.
12 servings

Chocolate Caramel Sauce
20 caramels
½ Hershey’s Syrup
3 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons butter

* Remove wrappers from caramels. In small microwave-safe bowl, place caramels, chocolate syrup, milk and butter. Microwave at HIGH (100%) 2 to 2 ½ minutes or until caramels are softened. Stir until caramels are melted and mixture is blended. If necessary, microwave at HIGH additional 10 seconds; stir until caramels are melted.


  Another barbecue, another reason to try a new recipe! This time the barbecue is with a coworker and his girl friend, so there will be guests. Even better he is a caterer, so this desert needs to be nice on the eyes as well as the taste buds! In a conversation with him once we talked about the best desserts and we found we both thought that a brownie with a scoop of icecream on top is about the best desert you can have.  So my search was narrowed… I wanted something like a brownie preferably with ice cream. I narrowed it down to three choices then ran them past the family. This recipe barely nudged out  Brownie pie a la mode, but for My Love, the Caramel Chocolate sauce  made this recipe very attractive. You see he is a caramel lover and only eats all the chocolate he does because that is what I have made. So this was in his words ‘the best of both worlds’. With that in mind I decided on vanilla icecream instead of chocolate.
I am repeatedly surprised at how simple and quick these recipes are to put together. I don’t know why but I think the long years of box cake and brownie mixes have persuaded me that from scratch is difficult or time consuming. That I don’t have time for this. Well, each time we mix something up I am trying to undo that ridiculously absurd brain washing. The dough was mixed up in 5 minuets so quickly that I read the recipe twice more to be sure I did it right (we all know my record with misreading).
This was done, out of the oven and cooling long before the quest arrived.
The barbecue was spectacular! We had made a pasta salad with olives, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, garlic, onions, crimini mushrooms, zucchini, and summer squash.  A simple garden salad, and I had mixed up some bread dough that the kids shaped in to the biggest buns! There were only eight rolls because they decided to make them as big as possible. We also made hamburgers and chicken. Darryld and his girlfriend brought smoked pork lion, barbecue ribs with his special rub that Monster loves, his special barbecue sauce, potatoes au gratin and a warm green bean and carrot side dish. Oh and corn on the cob! Can not forget the Olathe Sweet Sweet Corn…. We had lots of that too! For dessert there was Watermelon and then the Chocolate Sundae Pizza. 
For the fresh fruit we had fresh picked peaches from the neighbors tree, strawberries that Monster had chocolate dipped, and kiwi that I thin sliced. They were all arranged on the pizza then the icecream was added. Eldest scooped and then drizzled the Carmel Chocolate Sauce on top. It looked beautiful and though everyone was completely stuffed from dinner we gave it a try.
The pizza crust was really not what I expected. I think I was still thinking brownie. Turns out this was a big hit with most everyone. My Love really liked it, said the crust put him in the mind of a ginger snap, and it wasn’t too chocolaty. He really dug the Caramel Chocolate Sauce and I caught him and eldest adding a big spoonful to their icecream! The boy didn’t have room for dessert, but after 3 hamburgers what can you expect? Monster being the kid that she is picked all the fruit off (it magically reappeared on my slice), inhaled it and asked for seconds!
I personally think it needed more ice cream but I did get the smallest scoop.  If not bigger scoops then maybe softening the icecream and spreading it over the top then putting the fruit and sauce on top of that? This one may be getting tried again when I need to make a not completely chocolate dessert.