Pizza Roses

Thaw the frozen puff pastry sheets at room temperature by placing them on the counter for 40 minutes. Once thawed, preheat an oven to 375 degrees, and lightly spray a 12-hole cupcake pan with olive oil or another non-stick cooking spray. Wipe any excess oil off the pan with a paper towel to ensure a thin coating that does not prevent the puff pastry from rising. Dust your work space with flour, and then use a rolling pin to roll the puff pastry sheets out to a length of 18". Use a pizza cutter to slice the sheets into 3" wide strips. You should have one dozen strips between the two sheets. Next, coat each strip with a tablespoon or so of your best spaghetti or pizza sauce. Cut the round pepperoni and hard salami slices in half. For best results, use large sliced pepperoni and hard salami. I found hard salami slices that were a bit larger than the pepperoni slices, so I used 3 pepperoni halves and 2 hard salami halves per rose. You may need to adjust accordingly based on your ingredients. Position the strips of puff pastry in front of you so the long ends are running left to right. Next you want to lay down the half circle meat slices so the flat side is down and the top of the rounded edge is above the puff pastry strip. If my description is not clear then just search for a video recipe for "apple roses" and see how they do it since we are going for the same effect. (The apple rose recipe was the inspiration for my pizza roses.) You also want to overlap the meat slices. I started with a pepperoni slice, followed by the slightly larger hard salami slice, then pepperoni, another hard salami, and finally pepperoni again for a total of 5 half-circle slices per rose. Once all of the meat slices are laid down, spread a little bit of finely grated mozzarella cheese across the puff pastry strip. Now fold the bottom half of the puff pastry upwards and onto the top half. You should see a strip of puff pastry with the semicircles of meat exposed along the top edge, while the sauce and cheese are contained within the folded pastry. Gently roll the puff pastry strips up and place them into the cupcake pan meat side up. Place the pan in your preheated oven, and bake for about 30 minutes checking on them periodically. Remove from the oven when the puff pastry appears done. If the pizza roses do not readily fall from the cupcake pan, use a fork to carefully scrape around the edges and bottom until they are free from the pan. Serve hot and enjoy!