Valentine’s Pizza Pockets make the perfect kid-friendly dinner for Valentine’s Day! Quick to prepare in either the oven or air fryer, these heart-shaped mini pizzas are sure to warm your little ones’ hearts!
Valentine’s pizza pockets are made with premade flaky or puff pastry dough! They’re so easy to assemble and will make the kids in heaven on this special day! Pop them in the air fryer or oven, and voila! It is mandatory to make kids a dinner they won’t fuzz over for Valentine’s Day! You can adjust the pizza to everyone’s taste—some with pepperoni, others with extra mushrooms—you decide! Don’t we all love a flaky heart-shaped pizza with stingy cheese?
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Do I need the Special Press?
No, although useful for families! You can also use a simple cookie cutter or make a pattern with paper and cut it with a knife. The important thing here is to close the sides of the pockets correctly with the help of a fork or fingers. If you want to buy these presses, you can buy them online; I got mine in a pack of four from Amazon (Check out these presses). It is great fun to have the press; the kids love participating in pressing and making their own pizza pockets!
The Basic Ingredients
The pizza base, or the ingredients that need to be in there, are the premade flaky or puff pastry dough, the tiny mozzarella balls, and a tomato concentrate (I highly recommend the Mutti one; Check it out). For the rest, you can add pepperoni, ham, precooked mushrooms, or onions; you are the chef. I like the mozzarella balls because they bring this lovely stringy cheese touch we love in pizza, but it’s much lower in sodium than shredded cheese. You are making it a plus for the kid’s health. If you want to know more about fresh mozzarella vs. shredded, check out this link!
Flaky or Puff Pastry?
The difference between these two is not much; the puff might be folded slightly more, meaning there will be more fat and layers. Both would work for this Valentine’s Pizza Pockets recipe; even pie dough (brise) would do, although Flaky does the best job! Puff could result in a slightly deformed shape and pie dough into a more rigid crust, but it is ultimately all possible.
Bake vs. Air Fried
I like to make recipes in the air fryer; it usually cuts the cooking time, and the result is more even. Ovens tend to cook unheavenly unless you have a convection oven. Look at the video (below in the recipe card); the edges and corners of the oven-baked pizza pockets are always darker, while they are all evenly cooked in the air Fryer. Thanks to the air moving around in there. But both would do magic here!
