Cheesy Cast Iron Pan Pizza

pizza pizza pizza there really are a lot of different types of pizza in fact just the other day i made a sushi pizza which made a lot of italian people and japanese people a little bit upset but when we talk about pizza most people think of that classic new york slice that nice bubbly sometimes darkened crust and that crispy bottom now i think we can all agree pizza is awesome but like many things in life sometimes it can be really hard to choose which kind of pizza to get and i'm not talking about toppings i'm talking about the actual style of pizza we've got new york chicago detroit style we've got neapolitan which frankly i don't like quite as much then we've got sicilian california london pizza a calzone and even back when i lived in rhode island we had some special type of pizza there it was basically just a slice of focaccia with a thick layer of red sauce on it and there was only just a sprinkle of parmesan cheese always always served either cold or room temperature and it was delicious but that's all to say that there are so many different types of pizza out there fortunately for you all today we're going to be making probably my favorite type you could possibly ever find and it took me a few years to discover it it is the humble pan pizza and today we're going to make it at home by using a cast iron pan now how exactly did i discover the pan pizza back in college from good old dominoes now i figure we might as well quickly order that good old pam pizza and frankly i'm gonna keep it simple the great part about a good pan pizza is that everything about it is great that's the great part about a good pan pizza no size no nothing i'm gonna keep it simple and we are literally just gonna get the regular old handmade pan pizza that made me fall in love with pan pizza let's wait a few minutes and we'll go grab our pizza wait i think our pizza is already here what hello hey nick hey what's up vinny i think you got a pizza down here did we get a pizza a domino's pan pizza it's only been like 15 minutes too that was said it was for the fast so i may have helped myself vinny i'm going to come down and beat your going sliceman i mean yeah go for it does he want a size two the mailman wants a slice too you wanna slice two for oh no i was just kidding you good [Laughter] now like i said what we have right here is a pan pizza and again i hope you know this obviously is not sponsored in fact this video is sponsored but by a different company right here is what started it all for me with pan pizza now to start i want to lift up the edge and show you what i love about the crust of a pan pizza look at that beautiful golden brown color on the edge that right there is texture and flavor something you don't see oftentimes in fast food like this but the reality is this is a really good slice of pizza right here and i genuinely believe that now i know it might be funny to some that we're using domino's for an example of a really good slice but i more want to show you this to say that this nice crust on the edge the buttery golden brown finish on the bottom as well as the golden bubbly cheese on top and a nice thick slice that will give us a gooey bite are all things that we want to nail in our own pan pizza go ahead take a slice i'm not gonna fire you come on go ahead you're fired get out no no no no no i'm just kidding anyway let's get back to it and let's get ready to make an awesome pan pizza because i know i'm ready now before i say anything else i was going to start this video with a slice of pizza but you know what would be an even better start is if you toss a like on the vid i can't tell you how much i appreciate it so i'm going to wait just a second for you to go and smack that like button and we'll see how i'm feeling later but if you do like the video i might save a slice of our pan pizza for you a little bit later all right let's get back to it for our pizza dough i'm gonna make the pizza dough i make every single time and that's a 72-hour fermented dough when making a dough like this you do want to measure it out by weight because it's much more precise and with baking you really don't want to screw around so we're going to start with 1100 grams of bread flour and i'm using king arthur i'll link this recipe in the description but it's from one of my close friends who's probably one of the leading pizza experts in the entire world then we're going to go in with 38 grams of fine sea salt and of course i'm going to be using my own line of salts which will be released to the public super soon and last but not least we're going to sprinkle in about 2 grams of active dry yeast if you want to measure this is about a half a teaspoon at this point i'm going to go in with about 780 grams of water which i'll measure off in a separate bowl at this point once we thoroughly mix all those dry ingredients we're gonna slowly drizzle in that water and fold it all together with a wooden spoon we want to form sort of a shaggy dough at this point and the great part about this dough is that it doesn't require all that much elbow grease at this point to save a mess i like to actually just knead it right in the bowl and we really only need to knead it for about two or three minutes here i know this part might make some of your arms a little bit tired but just always try to remember the fact that ultimately you're gonna get to spank this dough now we're gonna add just a little bit of olive oil into the bottom of a fresh bowl and then we'll take our lightly kneaded dough and give it a slight swirl and finally top it with a damp towel where it's going to sit for 24 hours at room temperature right on your counter 24 hours later our dough has risen up a little bit and at this point we'll flour our whole cutting board and drop down that doe now of course this should come as no shocker but it's time to give it a little you're fight you are absolutely fired and then we break this into nice dough balls which will just very lightly shape and then place in greased airtight containers for this deli containers are best but i'm just going to use a couple bowls with some tight plastic wrap now this goes in the refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours to further ferment bringing out all that amazing flavor and then we'll have our dough while we wait another 48 hours for that to ferment i have a quick question do you want free bacon for life if your answer was yes let me tell you a bit about today's sponsor butcherbox and if you're interested in that bacon click the link on my screen because new members will receive one pack of bacon in every box for the lifetime of their membership as well as free shipping in the spirit of that offer let's make some bacon while i tell you about butcher box butcher box delivers high quality meats to your door and personally i love the company for several reasons first they have 100 grass-fed beef free-range organic chicken and pork raised crate free butcher box is also cost effective with each meal costing about six dollars on average but most importantly to me they care about the planet as well as the livelihoods of the farmers and animals that's why their chickens get to roam free their farmers earn fair living wages and why all their salmon is wild caught and those are just a few examples now here's how it works you simply choose a box and delivery frequency and you've got five options for boxes including the popular custom box now here's the deal i got for you new members get one pack of bacon in every box for the lifetime of their membership that means you can make as much lemon pepper bacon as you want click the link below and enter your email to get this deal as well as free shipping now back to that good old jiggly dough as you can see at this point it is light and it is fluffy and it smells amazing so this here is ready to go into our cast iron pan now first things first we'll start by painting melted butter all over the cast iron that's how we're gonna get that beautiful beautiful crust i'm gonna stroke my brush up the edges of that cast iron to help to coax and lift that crust out of the pan when it cooks i know that sounds a little bit silly but every little thing like this matters when you're cooking also be sure not to do too much butter because you're gonna have fat and oil from all those cheeses as well now at this point we're gonna take our nice soft dough and i just want you to take a peek at those air bubbles on the edge there that right there is a very well fermented dough we're going to go ahead and pull off a nice big knob of this into our cast iron pan then i'm going to lightly oil my hands so i can spread it out and then we'll go ahead and start pressing push down with your fingers almost like you're making a focaccia here you want to spread this out as much as you possibly can eventually curling up the edges of your pan a little bit don't tilt it at me don't tilt me keep it down once that's nice and pressed out i'm going to lightly pinch up against the edges to try to slightly lift that crust if you have a really soft dough as you should it's not going to lift that high up but you want it to at least try to climb just a tad bit but later you'll see that the cheese is really what's going to climb now at this point we need to make our tomato sauce and for tomato sauce we keep it simple first we take a little bit of basil roll it up like a cigar at which point it should look something like this then chiffonade which means we cut it like this to get these nice really fine strands of basil essentially these are going to spread throughout that sauce really nicely and you can see as i pick these up that they're very fine and thin almost like little shoestring bits now those will go straight into my tomato sauce as well as a little bit more of my salt which if you can't tell i'm very very excited about what you'll have now is this beautiful rustic shot of this tomato and basil and salt which eventually will mix together just like this that right there is your tomato sauce easy and simple i said don't start filming it i said don't now we go on with our sauce and not too much because this has a lot of moisture let's face it nobody wants a wet pizza literally i've never met anyone that said i want a really nice and wet pizza you don't want that water from this tomato sauce coming out and ruining this amazing pie but one thing i do like to do with the pan pizza is go right around the edge with that tomato because the sugars and the tomatoes are going to caramelize and give you a nice crust when combined with that cheese now for our cheese we do want to go on with some low moisture mozzarella and you're always welcome to mix in whatever types of cheese you want but the most important thing for me for a pan pizza is to really get that edge with cheese we want that gorgeous nice crust up against the edge of our pizza almost a continuation of that crust you know i've made pizza plenty of times people say there's too much cheese on there but in my opinion that's not the right way to think about it i say put as much cheese as you want on there cheese it up at this point this pizza is gonna go into the oven at the max temperature my oven will even offer i don't have a specific time for you but keep a close eye on it and make sure that you get that perfect golden brown that you're looking for let's toss it in listen to that crackling deliciousness and take a close look at those edges that are clearly caramelized and beautiful this right here everybody is a pan pizza at its finest in my opinion it simply doesn't get better than this in the pizza world at this point in time once it's cooled for just a minute we're going to come in and loosen up those crispy edges of the pizza and the goal is to leave as many of those crispy bits on as possible so as you go around really hug the edge to do this you can use a fine knife or anything like that but ultimately the more of these crispy pieces that you leave the better it's gonna look when it's sitting on the cutting board now that the time has come to drop this pan pizza on our cutting board and give it a nice slice i'm gonna very confidently swoop it out just like that as you can see we've absolutely nailed those edges on this pan pizza and no that black color is not burnt that is the tomato that is heavily caramelized on the edge that is so much flavor and now right here just take a look at that webbing that climbs up the side of this pizza here it is absolutely gorgeous now i think it's time that we slice into this pizza and pick up one of these beautiful pieces so here goes nothing now this pizza is very hot right now and it's not super easy for me to hold in my bare hands but what i first want to show you is this crust right here again i really really hope you can all understand that this is absolutely not burnt in fact if you get this on your pizza you've nailed it this is a combination of that cheese in the tomato getting pretty much close to that point of burning yes but really just kind of caramelizing and almost over caramelizing to the point that it makes this hard crust that'll stay in this shape right up well past where the actual pizza ends aside from the fact that we have a really nice cheesy slice i do also want to show you the back side now clearly for one reason or another this slice wasn't sitting flush to the cast iron but that's okay what's important is that we have that really nice golden brown bottom and if you listen it's really hard and crispy now i think that's enough talking about this slice even though this is just about one of the sexiest slices of pizza you can make at home or find anywhere for that matter but i think it's time to eat to start with this pizza i do want to start by biting that crust because i want to show you how amazing this part of it is normally you're not used to that kind of texture when eating a slice of pizza but with this you are what you're eating when you bite this is soft crispy cheese it is chewy and it is delicious but perhaps more importantly let's dive into the pizza itself i know you like them how many times you've been fired today three this pizza amazing there's a nice thick crust on here and that means every time i take a bite there's a softer doughier part in the middle that i get to eat here's what each bite is like the bottom is crispy and buttery it gives some nice crunch and nice texture then you get to that middle which is fluffy and cheesy and it's that space where that sauce and that cheese and that dough can all mix together there and then of course you get to the top that layer of hot sauce and that cheese all bubble and mix together to make an amazing almost caramelized otherworldly bite and then of course when you want to sneak a bite off the edge you can get a unique different texture with some more cheese cooked in a different way you see a pan pizza doesn't have a crust the cheese right here is the crust so no more throwing your crust away for those people that don't like it you can eat that cheesy delicious pizza right up to the edge of your pan pizza and then break off a crust like nothing you've ever had before and pizza i love you now to all of you watching right now please don't forget to like the video you know how much i love it and you know how much i appreciate it when you just toss a like so if you didn't already take a quick second to go down and hit that like button for me i'd really appreciate it in the meantime lots of fun videos coming up as always so make sure you smack that subscribe button and that notifications icon that notifications gang is just growing and growing and growing and we want to keep having people hop on board i want to make sure you see these videos when they come out and if you're part of that notifications gang maybe i'll just save you a good old slice of pan pizza see you next time

Channel: Nick DiGiovanni

Views: 3,693,446

Keywords: pan pizza, pizza, cheesy pizza, iron pan pizza, iron pizza

Id: _FU_09TNAo8

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 30 2021