How to Create a Pizza Night They'll Love

Deep-dish pizza and rich chocolate cake can make any night a party. Our do-it-yourself menu guide makes preparing this meal easy and a lot more fun than calling for delivery.

-- Creamy Parmesan Dip
-- Chicago-Style Deep-Dish Pizza
-- Chocolate Lover's Cake

This dip and a plate of crisp munchies will keep everyone satisfied until the pizza is out of the oven.

A made-from-scratch Meaty Pizza Filling sets this deep-dish in a league of its own. The next four slides walk you through the basics of this Windy City favorite.

Begin by pressing the dough into the pan with your fingers, taking care to fit the dough into the bottom edge of the pan without any air pockets. Step 2 shows how to distribute the Meaty Pizza Filling into the pan.

After prepping the pizza dough, spoon the spinach mixture evenly over the sausage mixture. Spread the spinach mixture gently to keep the sausage and spinach layers separate. Step 3, featured in the next slide, shows how to create a true pizza pie.

Arrange the dough wedges on top of the spinach mixture you added in Step 2 (previous slide). Overlap the wedges as needed to fit. Press the edges to the bottom crust to seal. The next slide shows the final step needed to make your pizza oven-ready.

After sealing the top dough wedges in Step 3, use a pastry brush to brush the melted butter over the pizza. Sprinkle the Parmesan over the buttered top and bake.

No one will complain about staying in for the night if they know this moist, super chocolaty cake is on the menu. Our recipe provides two signature variations like the Chocolate Cherry Cake, shown here. In the next five slides, we highlight step-by-step instructions for making the Chocolate Lover's Cake.

In a medium bowl, whisk buttermilk and vanilla into cooled cocoa mixture. The next slide shows how to add eggs to the batter.

After whisking buttermilk and vanilla with the cocoa mixture in Step 1, add eggs, one at a time, beating them in completely after each addition. Next, Step 3 reveals tips for beating in the flour.

After mixing in eggs, beat in flour and buttermilk mixtures as directed in the Chocolate Lover's Cake recipe. Make sure to scrape the sides of your bowl after each addition. Your batter is now ready for baking. The directions on the next slide will get you started spreading the Chocolate Butter Frosting on the finished cake layers.

After baking and cooling the two cake layers, place the first cake layer on a serving plate. Spread 1 1/2 cups frosting over the top of the layer. Next, top the frosted first layer with the second cake layer, top side up. Frost the top and sides of the entire cake with the remaining Chocolate Butter Frosting. Try one of the garnish suggestions in our complete Chocolate Lover's Cake recipe.

Anyone Can Cook is an innovative cookbook that encourages those new to the kitchen to make simple yet tasty meals, while providing the tools to move on to more complex recipes.