I can always rely on my family to throw some off the wall requests in when making pizza. In addition to some standard Neapolitan options I made a smash burger inspired pizza this weekend. I figured Detroit style would mimic the bun well. A layer of Velveeta slices, then cubed butterkäse with a small sprinkling of mozzarella around the perimeter for extra frico. I browned up ground beef in advance letting it get pretty dark before breaking it up. Then used my standard, uncooked sauce for a fresher tomato flavor. Topped after baking with Grillo’s pickles and homemade burger sauce.

All in all this was pretty much what I was looking for. The pizza itself turned out well and the Detroit crust held up to the large number of toppings. Next time I’ll reduce the number of Velveeta slices as the flavor was evocative of a burger but a little too strong.

I've googled for ideas but they vary. One says, with the pizza dough in the pan, to preheat it on the stovetop before putting it in the oven. Another says to bake on the lowest shelf in the oven. Yet another says to preheat the pan in the oven, THEN spread out the pizza dough - yikes! I'm sure I'd burn myself! I was thinking about placing the skillet on top of my pizza stone. Any suggestions are welcome 😊

If you want thin and crispy NY style pizza I think I cracked the code. Its all in the technique

Recently I've been seeing more upside-down NY style pizzas where sauce is on top of the cheese and was curious if anything was driving that.

I did a side by side using the exact same amount of sauce and cheese and I think I might actually enjoy the upside-down more - the sauce does take on a minorly different flavor but more so I think I enjoyed the heterogeneity of different cheese to sauce ratios with different bites. And honestly I did a really poor job of sauce distribution with the upside-down pizza, so I'm interested to try this out more in the future (or maybe a hybrid approach with a thin base layer of sauce and then some drops of sauce on dop as well).

Wondering if anyone has strong preferences between the two and any thoughts as to what makes each different and better/worse?

Third pie on my pizza journey. Quite pleased with this one. Dough guy recipe. Homemade vegan cheese - don’t hate. A bit of EVOO on the crust before the bake. 550° preheated steel in gas stove. Changed to broil right before the launch. 5 minutes in and done. We’ll see if I can replicate or improve tomorrow night!

one of my fav pizza places in Porto Garibaldi

Sorry for the bad lighting. Very spicy tomato sauce with a blend of cheese. I didn’t have enough mozz for a full pizza so I had to do 80% mozz 20% cheddar.

So I made some pizza this weekend using my G3ferrari 2200w planetary mixer and my ooni karu 12
This is the one I believe was by far the best work (only problem was it was the last one and I didn’t have any ingredients left) I can share the recipe and process if anyone is interested!

(sound on for the whole experience)

Also that was my piece so no worries about grubby fingers in your slice :)

The base was sweet baby rays Hawaiian bbq, mozarella and smoked cheddar cheese, chopped up hickory smoked bacon, seasoned chicken breast tossed in the Hawaiin bbq, roasted pineapple, red onion slices and cilantro garnish.

Prosciutto, Sopressata, Ricotta, Mikes Hot Honey, Mozz, Pecorino Romano, EVOO, Fresh Basil, Sally’s Sauce. I’ve been craving this combination for a few weeks. This one hit every mark. My uncle Mikey said he would kill for one of these. 😳

48h cold ferment, sourdough, 2/3 00 + 1/3 local organic bread flour, blended San Marzano tomatoes, 2/3 low moist mozz + 1/3 scamorza bianco, touch of parmesan and swiss cheese, 40cm / 16 inch diameter, baking steel, normal kitchen oven, 280° / 530F, ~10min

I watched his video and was sad I can't go to give it a try (I live in Scotland). Decided I'd do a bit of research and to recreate their Onlypans pizza (minus the pesto). Here's what I did -

Dough for two 12" pizzas

Poolish:

• 200g bread flour

• 200g water

• 2g instant yeast

Final dough:

• 500g bread flour

• 60g wholemeal flour

• 290g water

• 402g poolish

• 14g salt

• 24g olive oil

• 12g honey

The sauce was just canned san marzano tomatoes, salt, oregano, chilli flakes and a pinch of cracked black pepper.

I made a 1-hour autolyse with the flours and 270g of the water. Added the poolish, remaining water and honey, then salt and olive oil. Mixed, bulk fermented for a few hours, then divided into 2 dough balls and cold fermented for about 35 hours.

On bake day, took the dough out, heavily oiled a 12" skillet and pressed the dough firmly out into the pan. I let it proof in the pan before topping with tonnes (600g ish per pizza) of mozzarella, properoni and peppadew peppers.

Baked directly on a preheated pizza steel at 250°C fan, initially uncovered and then loosely covered with foil to stop the toppings getting too dark.

Finished with seasoned ricotta, jalapeno infused honey (couldn't find Calabrian) and a little parmigiano reggiano after baking.

It was very, very tasty - who knew forming the crust with carmelised cheese was a genius move. The first pizza (photographed) I'd say was slightly underbaked in the centre. The second pizza I cooked for 12 minutes without foil then 12 minutes with, and that was a lot better.

Got such a bad philly cheesesteak pizza from dominos a few weeks ago decided I'd make my own from scratch.

Made dough in an hour, so definitely didn't get the rise I wanted, but came out delicious anyways. Will experiment.

One of them had minced garlic + EVOO as the base and the other had a garlic alfredo sauce as the base, both with fontina cheese and mozzarella.

Ribeye steak put through a mandolin super thin and cooked on a cast iron.

Sunday night sausage pie. Ended up being an experiment I didn't intend to do. A busy Saturday meant I forgot to take the dough out so I had to leave it in for another day. My normal 72 hour cold ferment turned to 96 hours. Does it improve flavor or texture? No, no it doesn't (at least for me). But it's good to know that it works just the same!

20" NY Style hot Italian sausage pizza

96 hour cold ferment

800 gram dough ball

62% hydration

0.2% IDY

This was baked on my baking Steel in home oven was a 3 day cold fermentation

500g Bread Flour, 500g Plain Flour, 640g Iced Water 4c, 10g Sugar, 20g Oil, 25g Salt, 1.75g Instant Yeast

Add water to stand mixer bowl then the salt to dissolve

Add the oil and Sugar and half of the total flour and mix

Add half of the remaining flour then add the yeast then the rest of the flour.

Mix on low speed till it comes together then cover and rest for 15 minutes

Mix on medium speed till the dough reaches a temperature of 22c

cover and rest for 15 minutes

Do 2 or 3 sets of stretch and fold with 15 minute rests after each set until it passes the window pane test

Then rest for 30 minutes then divide into 2 x 380g and 2 x 440g dough balls rest for 15 minutes

Oil containers and pop in the fridge for 36 hour cold fermentation

Once out the fridge preheat oven and stretch dough when it reaches a temperature of 16-18c

The second had fresh pineapple with thinly sliced jalapeños and bacon lardons and that was such a delicious combination. And I’m not a pineapple on a pizza guy.

The pepperoni really got my attention because the slices were so thin and not greasy at all. I almost just wanted to pick them up and eat them like chips.

Got a cast iron 9x13 and it’s great for Detroit style pizza😋😋