Back to School Lunchbox Made Easy: Mini Pizza Loaves
If you've got a kid who takes one look at a sandwich and closes the lid, you know the back-to-school scramble is really a lunchbox scramble. These mini pizza loaves are how we solved it at our house. All the flavour of pizza night- salami, mozzarella, and sun-dried tomato- baked into a grab-and-go loaf with nothing to assemble at 7am.
The base comes together in one bowl with self-raising flour, eggs, olive oil, and milk, no proofing and no kneading required. If self-raising flour isn't something you keep on hand, our All-Purpose Red Fife flour works just as well: for this recipe, mix 1 1/2 cups of flour with 2 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and you've got a self-raising blend that still carries all the flavour of stone-milled wheat.
Bake a batch on Sunday, and you're set for the week: these keep well in the fridge and freeze even better, so mornings become a matter of grabbing one from the freezer on the way out the door. No cutting off crusts, no wondering if today is a sandwich day.
Mini Pizza Loaves
For the Loaves
- 1 1/2 cupsSelf-raising flour (230 g). Make your own: 1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Red Fife flour + 2 1/4 tsp baking powder + 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cupGrated mozzarella, plus extra for topping (100 g)
- 50 gSalami, cut into small pieces
- 50 gSun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped (optional)
- 4Eggs, whisked
- 1/4 cupOlive oil
- 1/2 cupMilk
- 1 tbspItalian seasoning
- To tasteSalt and pepper
For Topping
- 1Mini salami stick, sliced (30 g)
- A littleExtra grated mozzarella
Directions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line a muffin tin or mini loaf tin with baking paper.
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, mozzarella, salami, and sun-dried tomatoes.
- Add the eggs, olive oil, and milk. Season generously with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning, then stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared tins. Top with the extra mozzarella and the mini salami rounds.
- Bake for about 20-22 minutes, until risen and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Stand in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.
- Serve warm with butter, or pack into lunchboxes once fully cooled.
Freezer-Friendly Lunchbox Prep
These are built for batch baking. Double the recipe, let the loaves cool completely, then freeze them in a single layer before bagging. A frozen loaf tucked into a lunchbox in the morning will be perfectly thawed, and still cool, by lunchtime, no soggy sandwich bag required. They also travel well plain, so kids who are fussy about "wet" fillings still get all the pizza flavour without anything falling out.
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