Crostini are all about shareability, indulgence and versatility. Featuring everything good in the world — carbs, cheese, cured meat, fancy nuts — these homemade pizza crostini with ricotta, speck and Marcona almonds are about to become your new go-to appetiser when you want to impress.

Unlike bruschetta, which is traditionally grilled or broiled, crostini (“toasts” in Italian) are usually toasted just enough to crisp them up. But the rules about what kind of bread you should use to make crostini are pretty loose. Phaidon’s “The Silver Spoon,” often referred to as the definitive book on Italian cooking, cites an extensive choice of bases: baguettes, focaccia, soda bread, sourdough and breads made with polenta, rice, millet, buckwheat and rye. But it also notes that “homemade breads of all types are ideal,” which may shed light on where we’re going. Why not pizza crostini?

A homemade, crusty pizza base is easy to prepare. We blind bake pizza dough, docking it with a fork to prevent it from turning into pita, then cut it into party-sized squares. Depending on how hefty you’d like your bites to be, cut a 12-inch pizza into 12 or 16 squares. From there, all you have to do is roughly chop the almonds, mix some olive oil and pepper into the ricotta, and assemble. 

The formula for this crostini is cheese + nuts + cured meat. We chose fresh ricotta for its creamy texture and relatively mild nature. Marcona almonds, an extra-fatty variety from Spain, are fried in oil and salted so they’re richer, sweeter and saltier than most other almonds. Speck, an Italian ham that’s cold-cured with juniper and other spices, is salty, spicy, sliced thin enough for light to pass through and beautifully perched atop each bite. The resulting snack is spicy, herbal and delightfully salty. 

While we love this particular combination, the overall formula is easy to play with . Manchego + pistachios + jamon serrano? Mozzarella + pine nuts + prosciutto? The canvas is yours.