Pepperoni bites

My friend had a get together the other night, so I, of course, used it to try something new.

I decided to try these pepperoni bites because they looked easy, sounded tasty, and seemed like a good party food.

How hers turned out.

Yeah.

I was wrong.

I picked up the exact type of roll the writer suggested, Grands Homestyle Buttermilk. I used mozzarella instead of whatever cheese she chose.  On top, I used an Aldi pizza and pasta grinder, garlic salt and parmesan cheese. The only different was that I used olice oil instead of an egg wash.

I verified with My Brother the Chef first that this would be okay. And he said since it was there mostly for color and to get the seasonings to stick, it would be fine. I didn't want to use the egg wash because I was making the dish, taking it to my parents' house while we had dinner, and THEN taking to my friend's to bake. I didn't want raw egg hanging out that long.

I had no trouble making the bundles, and proceeded to line them up in a 9x13 baking pan (that I sprayed with cooking spray just to be on the safe side). It was a tight fit, but from the pictures, it looked just a little more crowded than the example.

Again.

I was wrong.

I preheated my friend's oven (not something I always do, I'll admit), put them in for 19 minutes (splitting the difference), and checked on them once.

Well, for some reason (and I wish I had remembered my camera), my bites seemed to expand more than hers. Like, the dough on one of the bites was an inch taller than the pan ledge.

It'll be fine, I figured, it doesn't matter what they look like as long as they taste good. And they did smell very good.

Yet again.

I was wrong.

I pulled the first one out of the pan since I was really excited to try them. I took the super-risen one in the corner.

Anywhere the bread had touched the pan was black. Burned near to charred, black.

I didn't eat that part, I had the rest, which I thought lacked flavor. It needed a different cheese (maybe I should have used the colby-jack) and some seasoning. It's fixable, I thought. The ones at the middle should only be burnt on the bottom, which can easily be sliced off.

Except the dough of the ones in the middle was raw where they touched other bites.

See?

Burned on the outside. Raw at the middle.

Not cool.

Not cool at all.

About half the bites were either eaten or pitched by the time I left. I was glad I had brought yummy things for pretzels, because otherwise, I would have been an even bigger fail at party helping.

Conclusion: This is not worth the effort to try again. And since I doubt my friend's oven is THAT super screwy, either 9x13" pans can vary wildly (in size) or there was something else the creator failed to mention.