You may know that the motto of the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen empire is "Recipes That Work." This one does.** Like a charm. But you grokked that from the title above, right?
The crust texture was superb, producing, potentially, some of the best pizza I've made in my home oven in some time. The flavor was good, too. By the time I got to the end crust, I kept on eating. The only minor quibble I had was that it could have been a bit more salty. But that may have been my fault: I used coarse salt instead of table salt. Note that when Cook's calls for just "salt," the magazine means table salt, calling for kosher salt when necessary. (I've got a batch in the fridge salted with table salt now and will see how that works.)
Regular Slice visitors know that my crust texture as of late has been plagued by a quality that my wife (my personal guinea pig and taste-tester) describes as "creepy bagel" — a thin, outer skin that's crisp yet way too tough, way too chewy. The Cook's crust passed muster with her, crisp on the bottom and the ends and airy and just soft enough in the interior.
The sauce is easy enough to blitz together. It, too, uses the food processor. My tip is to do the sauce first, since it's easier to clean the blade and bowl after this step than after the dough. The sauce uses a nice amount of oregano, that mainstay of New York–style pizza sauce, and a fair amount of garlic. The garlic is a strong note in the finished sauce, so any minor-league vampires out there may want to back down on it a bit.
The basic recipe calls for finely grated Parmesan and freshly grated whole-milk mozzarella cheeses. In the photo montage above, I'm saucing and topping the first of the two pizzas that this recipe yields. Here's what it looked like postoven:
Whoa! Puffy rim, huh? That's my fault. I didn't stretch the first one thin enough.
See, the recipe calls for an eventual 13-inch round. That's really pushing it for the diameter of stone I have, which is, well, about 13 inches. So I stretched to the usual diameter I'm comfortable with. The result was that the edges, where sauce and cheese were not weighing down the crust, poofed up to something like you might see at L.A.'s Pizzeria Mozza.
Girl Slice, I have to report, LOVED the puffy rim. "It's like something you'd get at Motorino," she said. (If only I had topped this thing with brussels sprouts!)
No worries on the puffy rim, though. When I stretched the second dough ball to 13 inches, the pizza came out pretty much as I imagine Andrew Janjigian, the CI writer who came up with it, intended it:
Bottom line: I really love this crust. I think it's super for first-time or novice pizzamakers and that it should please even the dough-whisperers out there.
The only major "problem" I had with it? It sort of obviates the need for me to play around with sourdough starters, persnickety flour blends, and elaborate oven hacks — all stuff I like to tinker with.
Optional Reading
As some of you noted in the comments of my post last week, the CI recipe is pretty similar to Kenji's New York–style Pizza at Home recipe. I'll reiterate that both Kenji and Andrew Janjigian, who developed the Cook's technique, worked independently of one another, neither aware of what the other was up to. The hallmarks of both recipes include using a food processor to whiz the dough up quickly and a 24- to 72-hour "cold fermentation" period in the refrigerator.
If you're new to Slice and/or DIY pizzamaking, the "cold rise" is a popular technique for producing a crust that's far more flavorful than one you'd get with a same-day mix-and-rise. As Cook's Illustrated explains:
Fermentation is a two-phase process: First, the carbohydrates in the dough are converted by the yeast to sugars, alcohol, and acids. Next, these convert to carbon dioxide, expanding the bubbles created in the dough when it was first mixed. At room temperature, the process moves rapidly to the production of carbon dioxide. But in the fridge, the process is slowed way down. With enough time, the complex-tasting sugars, alcohol, and acids form, but very little carbon dioxide gets converted, so the bubbles in the dough stay small and the crust bakes up both thin and more flavorful.
If you have never made pizza before, or have only made same-day doughs, believe me when I say that the cold rise will change your pizza making life. It changed mine, and I almost can't bring myself to make same-day doughs now.
** Girl Slice and I have a digital subscription to the website, and own several of the CI cookbooks. It's been our experience that, yes, the recipes we've cooked from do indeed work.
Thin crust pizza is a style of pizza that is characterized by its thin, crispy crust. The dough is rolled out very thinly, resulting in a lighter and crunchier base compared to traditional thicker crust pizzas.
Unlike other pizzas that have an inch-thick crust that can sometimes be chewy in the middle, a Chicago thin crust pizza is much thinner, and has crispy, crunchy edges. And if it comes wrapped in white paper with grease marks that leak through the top (if you know you know), all the better.
As a result, each slice of the thin crust will usually have fewer calories and carbs than an equivalent slice of deep-dish pizza, making it an excellent option for health-conscious individuals. However, it still offers all the delicious flavors of traditional pizzas without the added calories.
The top chefs all agree that the best pizzas are all about the crust, so salt in the dough should never be sacrificed at the altar of salty toppings. “Building a pizza is like building anything else – you have to make compromises and consider the whole when choosing the parts.
Typically, Neapolitan-style pizza has a soft, thin crust and is baked in a wood-burning oven at between 800 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit for 70 to 90 seconds. At this temperature, the crust will bubble up and char, leaving you with a delicious meal.
If you want to taste the toppings to their fullest, thin crust is the way to go. The thin crust is basically a delivery system for the sauce, cheese, and toppings, and we wouldn't have it any other way. If you want to fill up mostly on bread, you're going to prefer the flavor of thick-crust pizza.
It's all a matter of personal preference. But if you're a cheese lover, we'd recommend you try the cheese burst crust. Health-conscious people should try the wheat-thin pizza crust, and the rest can give try fresh pan pizza.
Hand-tossed pizza has a thinner, crispier crust and softer dough. A pan pizza's crust is thick and chewy, while its dough is more bread-like. To make hand-tossed pizza, hold the dough with one hand palm up and the other in a fist. Angle and extend your arms towards your face and toss the dough up.
No need pretending, Italians very often cut of the crusts of their pizza. It is not considered offensive or wrong. What happens is that the pizza is cut in slice and then eaten holding it in your hands. Most eat till the crust, before going for the next slice.
The original pizza, as it was traditionally made in Naples, Italy, had a thin and crispy crust. The pizza was baked quickly in a wood-fired oven and typically featured simple toppings such as tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.
About a quarter of respondents (26%) say they like pineapple on pizza. As for the crust underneath, Americans are narrowly divided between thin crust pizza (31% say this is their preferred pizza style) and regular crust (29%). About one in five (18%) prefer deep-dish pizza.
Mozzarella. Perhaps the most well-known and popular pizza topping of all-time, Mozzarella is cherished for its near perfect consistency and straightforward flavour. ...
No doubt pineapple has a robust flavor, no matter which side you're on. While pineapple slices are tasty, they don't make a delicious pizza topping. Your cheese and other toppings may be unnoticeable because, with a strong pineapple flavor, you risk masking all the different flavors.
Thin crust: Thin crust pizza is crispy and has a thin, crunchy texture. This type of crust is often used in Neapolitan-style pizza. Thick crust: Thick crust pizza is chewy and has a softer texture than thin crust pizza.
Top-notch Texture: Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside. What could be better than that mouth-watering combo? The pizza crust texture should be in harmony with any possible topping. Once you pull it out of the oven and take the first bite, the warm, delicate interior should complement the crunch of the exterior.
pizza, dish of Italian origin consisting of a flattened disk of bread dough topped with some combination of olive oil, oregano, tomato, olives, mozzarella or other cheese, and many other ingredients, baked quickly—usually, in a commercial setting, using a wood-fired oven heated to a very high temperature—and served hot ...
Thin-crust pizza may refer to any pizza baked with especially thin or flattened dough, and, in particular, these types of pizza in the United States: Bar pizza, also known as tavern-style pizza.New Haven-style pizza. New York-style pizza.
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