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    Gourmet Asks the Toughest Critics in the World to Test Pizza--Kids!

    By | Shine Food – Tue, Apr 19, 2011 9:26 PM EDT

    A tester investigates one of Gourmet's pizzas.A tester investigates one of Gourmet's pizzas.By Maddie Donnelly, Gourmet Live guest blogger

    For parents who end up throwing a frozen pizza in the oven at least one night a week to feed the fam, we have some exciting news.

    We put five of the pizza recipes from Gourmet Italian's new Italian Kitchen magazine to the test. But rather than asking food critics or chefs for their ratings, we checked in with the tiny people whose opinions often matter most when it comes to home cooking: Kids. And the results astounded us.

    Related: More of Gourmet's Favorite Italian Recipes

    The winning pizza--handily beating out the four others including a standard mozzarella and tomato pizza--and given loads of "Awesome!" votes for taste, was Gourmet Italian's Fontina, Prosciutto, and Arugula Pizza. The crispy, crunchy crust, soft, gooey fontina cheese, and thinly sliced prosciutto topping won our young audience over. Turns out, if you don't tell the kids it's fancy prosciutto, they assume it's regular old lunch meat and go to town.

    We went light on the greens but didn't hear any complaints there either. As 7-year-old Franklin told us, "It's awesome! And I didn't even have to take anything off of it!"The winning pizzaThe winning pizza

    "He's only in his life ever had plain pizza," one of the moms said, referring to her 6-year-old son whom she has dubbed 'Picky Eater Iain.' "We had a talk about trying new things last night, but I never thought he would. This is a big breakthrough."

    See Also: How to Order Gourmet's Italian Kitchen

    For a breakthrough of your own, and a nice Friday night activity with the kids, here's Gourmet Italian's fast, healthy, hit pizza recipe. Best of all, it only takes 30 minutes to make from start to finish. That's even less time than a deliveryman can guarantee.

    Click here for Gourmet Italian's Fontina, Prosciutto, and Arugula Pizza Recipe

    Photographs: Chris Gentile


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