To follow the progress, refer back to how I started over at our first post.
At the bottom of that post, I made my notes and today I’m going to try to fix them. Interestingly enough, I’m going to use the same ingredients, just slightly modified. The first one had a great taste, but it was a little too burnt. The bottom was edible, but it wasn’t pleasant. We’re going to scrap the pizza stone idea. The pan got plenty hot, we don’t need to make it super hot.
I’m going to make three major changes: Less direct pan heat, less dough, and thicker sauce. Let’s start with the sauce.
The Sauce
I didn’t want to waste half a jar of sauce just because it wasn’t thick enough. Let’s throw it in a pan, and reduce it a bit.
So that’s exactly what I did. Let it simmer for a few and dragged the wooden spoon through it until it stayed separated. Easy change, but a necessary one – until I make my own sauce.
The Dough
Cut this back to what I thought was 75% of the original 1lb frozen. That last pie was way too doughy, and although some may enjoy it that way – I wanted it more familiar to Detroit Style.
Threw it on our lightly oiled pan and stretched it out. Covered it, stretched again. Kept this routine until it filled the pan – raised a little bit on the edge, but not like last time. Dimple it to hopefully get that airy texture and we’ll see how this goes.
One more change, to prevent that awful bottom char. Parbake.
The Pre-Bake
We’re going to throw this in at 500F for a little bit and get that dough cooked, cheese melted and those pepperoni oils seeped in. We’re going to break it from sticking to the pan and finish up the build. The sticking isn’t an issue at all, especially after it being seasoned and cooked on for a few already.
Sauce may have been a little bit too thick, but we’re learning. We threw down more cheese – to the edges, few more pepperonis and the typical racing stripes of sauce. And then it’s back on the RecTeq
The Bake
Kept a better eye on this one and we let it cook. We’re hoping for better.
We got the golden cheese, we got the cupped pepperoni – and we got that caramelized crust. I think we’re onto something.
The Pie
If you saw that last post, I cut the pie and it kinda fell onto iself. This time around, it did not. Let me show you the cross:
So, not only did the dough turn out as perfect as I thought a frozen dough would. We nailed the pan to dough ratio. The sauce was better, not perfect. The parbaking of the crust seems to be the winner. We’re still going to test some things out, but this was one hell of a round two. Stay tuned – I haven’t even started homemaking ingredients yet. Twenty-twenty five is going to be a ride!