Lightly dust a clean working space with flour where you can roll out your pizza crust/dough. Spread out the dough and roll it out to a thickness of about 0.1 inches or 3 millimeters and into a rectangle. It's ok if the corners are rounded.
1 Piece Pizza Crust, All-purpose Flour
Slice into the crust and cut into 12 rectangles, each about the same size. Note: The corner rectangles may turn into triangles, which is ok. You can still turn them into pockets.
Prepare your fresh mozzarella by cutting it into half and then into thick slices. Keep aside with all the other topping ingredients, the tomato sauce, the oregano or pizza seasoning, the salt and the pepperoni slices.
⅓ Cup Tomato Sauce, 1 Tablespoon Oregano OR Pizza Seasoning, ¼ Teaspoon Salt, 1 Large Fresh Mozzarella, 48 Slices Pepperoni
Top each rectangle with the tomato sauce and spread it out but keep distance from the border. The tomato sauce should remain in the center.
⅓ Cup Tomato Sauce
Season with oregano or pizza seasoning and salt.
1 Tablespoon Oregano OR Pizza Seasoning, ¼ Teaspoon Salt
Place 4 slices of pepperoni over each rectangle and top with the mozzarella cheese.
48 Slices Pepperoni, 1 Large Fresh Mozzarella
Sealing and Baking
Preheat oven to 430 Fahrenheit (ca. 220 degree Celsius).
Pull the dough from one end over the filling to the other end so that the edges meet. Make sure that the filling is tucked in and not getting too close to the edge. Lightly press down the edges. Do that with all pockets.
Crimp the seams of the edges. You can choose between two sealing techniques in this recipe. Choose one of the two or do both with all your mini calzone pockets.
Crimping technique No. 1 – The rope-style crimp. Start at one corner by pinching and twisting in diagonally across the seam. Repeat until you have done the whole length of the seam. (Please watch the video above)
Crimping technique No. 2 – The fork crimp. Press down with a fork along the length of the edges to seal the seams.
Line a baking pan with parchment baking paper and place 6 pizza pockets at a time next to each other, but keep some distance between each pocket.
Bake in the preheated oven at 430 Fahrenheit (ca. 220 degree Celsius) for about 15 minutes or until the pockets have gained some colors. They are done if they look baked. In doubt, keep them in for another 1–2 minutes. Note that they will take longer to bake if you reduce the heat setting or if you didn't roll out your pizza crust as directed.
Keep out to cool after baking, they will be very hot on the inside! Enjoy (see serving ideas in post).
I prefer to use pizza seasoning because the herbs and spices are a perfected blend to season pizza dishes, but if you don't have pizza seasoning you can use simply oregano (dried or fresh) or even marjoram. Another option is to use Italian seasoning, which is similar to pizza seasoning.
Use about 4 slices of Pepperoni per rectangle. It can be substitutes with salami or ham if you prefer.
To make it vegetarian, skip the meat altogether and just fill your pockets with more cheese. BUT use a cheese that is made without animal rennet, such as a fresh cheese.
The best fresh mozzarella is the Italian buffalo mozzarella. It's made with buffalo milk, and it is superior in taste but also more pricey.
Galbani is a decent Italian brand selling fresh mozzarella balls in Europe, the US, and Canada.
You can substitute fresh mozzarella cheese with processed mozzarella cheese or pizza cheese.
If your pizza crust isn't perfectly rectangle after rolling out, it will have rounded shorter corner rectangles which will look like triangles. You can still fold those into pockets but reduce the filling and fold over to smaller triangles. These may bake through slightly faster by 1–2 minutes.