We took jalapeño poppers — breaded or bacon-wrapped jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese — and baked them right into a pizza crust. Our riff on this beloved party snack is full of dairy and light on the bacon for maximum cheese pull and minimal bacon fat leakage.

There are many approaches to jalapeño poppers and stuffed crusts. After plenty of *ahem* “research,” we’ve found the most effective is to bake jalapeño poppers and then cut them up and combine them with mozzarella, cream cheese and heavy cream to create a spreadable mixture (shredded mozz gives you that picture perfect string cheese effect).

There are a few extra steps to building a pizza with a jalapeño popper stuffed crust, which we outline below. But here’s the headline: Your dough ball needs to be bigger than normal. We know this sounds like a duh! moment, but trust us — it’s an oft-forgotten step in the process.

We launched our pizza into the oven from a peel, but if you’re a somewhat-more-hesitant pizzaiolo, you can use a screen or cook this pizza on a steel in your conventional oven, so that you don’t risk any rippage.