How to Make Crispy, Chewy Detroit-Style Pizza

[Music] Detroit style pizza is all thanks to one woman a waitress named Connie pitch natto who worked at a little restaurant in Detroit called buddies back in 1946 now having spent much of her childhood in Sicily she really missed those thick chewy pieces of focaccia from her youth so she convinced buddy's owner Gus to help her recreate it so they topped it with some cheese and just a little bit of tomato sauce and it was a huge hit putting buddies on the map as the home of Detroit style pizza and Brian you actually went there to learn how to make it from the originators that's right and part of their key to success is this blue steel pan okay these were originally made in the 1930s and 40s by a company called Dover's Parkersburg and they were scrap metal pans used by the assembly workers in the automotive industry they would hold nuts and bolts and scrap metal while they built the car so from the auto mechanic shop to the kitchen have that work out but worked out pretty well because after repeated use these pans get really well-seasoned like a well-used cast-iron pan so eventually you were able to get a nice crispy crust it's Lacey cheese ed to buddy's pizza I have to say it looks very similar to our classic nine by 13 baking pan I mean even down to the folded edges that's right but there's one distinct difference here you'll see it on the inside of this pan the folded metal is on the inside rather than just on the house oh yeah and that's where a lot of the grease would collect from the cheese no and you get this fried crispy corner and you still get that today some of the pans they use at buddy's or 50 75 years old oh I bet they're pretty valuable they're very bad so that's a hard pan to come by these days so we're turning to our trusty 13 by 9 inch baking pan this is a nonstick pan but we've gone ahead and sprayed it with a little bit of nonstick vegetable spray and that's really just to keep the cheese from sticking to the edge and just to develop that well-worn patina and that seasoned blue steel effect we're gonna add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and just brush it around all up on the sides into the corners of the pan and actually that's not that unusual if you think about making pan pizza you usually put a little extra oil into the pan that's right okay so the pan is seasoned and we can turn our attention to the dome all right now you should think of this as a Neapolitan style dough with a Sicilian assembly baked in a Detroit scrap metal pan so it's thick and a little doughy with crisp edges that's right so we have 200 quarter cups of all-purpose flour to that we're going to add one and a half teaspoons of sugar and one and a half teaspoons of instant or rapid rise yeast and then we're gonna whisk that together it's easier to whisk this together to incorporate rather than cooking on the dough mixer there yep and then we're gonna set it onto the mixer we'll turn the mixer on to low-speed and while it's running we're gonna go ahead and add one cup of room temperature water so when you're using instant yeast it's best to use room temperature or even slightly warm water because it helps activate the yeast and get it going all right we'll let this go for about two minutes until all that flour is hydrated and a nice cohesive ball starts to flow okay Julia you can see that we've got a nice dough ball forming at the bottom there and we want to let this dough sit for about 10 minutes to hydrate before we add the salt because salt can inhibit gluten development and hydration so we're just gonna cover it with a piece of plastic wrap and we'll just let it sit for ten minutes and come back and add that salt all right so that's actually called an auto lease and it's a good idea to do that whenever you make bread okay Julia it's been ten minutes and we are now ready to add the salt I have 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt and we're going to pop the mixer on to medium speed and let it knead the dough for about eight minutes at which point it will develop a nice set and you look you know pull away from the sides of the bowl will get a lot of gluten development during that time [Music] okay Julia it's been about eight minutes you can see that the dough is clearing the sides of the bowl it's really sticking to the bottom that's exactly what we want well you've got a good hydration on that dough we're gonna move the dough over here to a lightly floured counter and we're gonna get a a few needs just to kind of bring it together into a cohesive ball and brian is he's kneading it he's almost wrapping it more than really kneading it because it's so sticky that's right you want to use just enough bench flour so it doesn't stick to the counter and that's how you know you've got just the right amount don't be afraid to add more if it stick into your palm sticking to the bench at all all right so the dough has come together and now we could transfer it to our prepared pan we're gonna let the dough sit in the pan for about 15 minutes the cover with plastic wrap during this time the gluten in the dough will relax and will allow us to stretch it out that's right because if you try to stretch it out now feel like stretching out a rubber band it would keep snapping back okay Julia it's been 15 minutes and you can see the dough is nice and relaxed yeah it's mellowed out so we're just gonna press it into the corners of the pan with some lightly grease fingertips to kind of see this resemblance to focaccia mm-hmm and as I work my fingers into the dough I'm also incorporating just a small amount of oil into it which is also gonna help contribute to that nice crisp crust make it taste rich okay the dough is pushed nearly into the corners and if there's just a little bit of metal exposed that's okay because as the dough Rises it's gonna fill out the pan okay so we are gonna let this rise right here on the counter top until it's tripled in volume and that takes anywhere between two and three hours enjoy it it's time to make some sauce alright so at buddy's the crust is the start of the show so their sauce it's Irby it's a little bit sweet and it's a very wonderful sauce but it's used sparingly on the pizza okay so I have 1 cup of canned crushed tomatoes here and to that I'm gonna add 1 tablespoon of chopped fresh basil 1 tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil 1 clove of minced garlic 1 teaspoon of dried oregano 1 teaspoon of dried basil so the fresh basil adds a little bit of sweetness and a licorice type of flavor whereas the dry basil adds a little bit of bitterness and a little bit of pepperiness right I have a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar again the sauce is just a touch sweet 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and 1/4 teaspoon of salt so we'll just mix that together ok so that sauce is ready to go now we can come back and talk about cheese our dough is risen for about three hours and you see it's tripled in volume and it's filled in in the corners right in in Detroit things are a little bit topsy-turvy so we're gonna add the cheese before we add the sauce that is backwards buddies they use a Wisconsin brick cheese which is a slightly Tangier fattier version of mozzarella since we couldn't get it readily in our supermarkets we opted for another tangy fatty well melting cheese is Monterey Jack so it has a little bit more flavor than your average mozzarella that's right so we're gonna add two and a half cups of shredded Monterey Jack cheese it still looks a little wrong that we're making pizza and the cheese is going right on the dough but it tastes all right and you want to really spread it so you get all the way to the edge of the pan there that is the best part of the pizza is the cheesy crusty edge so now we're ready to add the sauce and the way we're going to add the sauce and the way they do it at buddy's is to add it in these thin little racing stripes down the length of the pie so with the large pizza you get three stripes a small pizza you get two stripes I like how you call them racing stripes cuz it is from Detroit Auto it's racing okay and just to finish up the gap there we have three perfect little racing stripes actually love how that looks yeah the crust is that started the show so you don't want too much sauce okay so now we're ready to put this on the low rack of a 500 agree oven for fifteen minutes until the cheese is nice and bubbly and brown hey Julie yeah let's take a look at this pizza right it is beautiful okay you ready that is a gorgeous but unusual looking pizza so we do have to wait at least five more men actually very happy to hear them say that this is molten hot cheese weird to try to remove the pizza from the pan right now we're liable to lose all the cheese under the counters you can't do that well let it rest for five minutes and come back and cut into it okay okay Joey yeah it's been five minutes you know as it cool this sauce really sinks down in there yeah we're getting closer and closer I'm just gonna run a paring knife around the edge of the pan you can see how it was important to spray the pan because that cheese does want to stick you definitely want to eat that part right now trickiest part I'm gonna stand back yeah want to slide it under the cutting board whoa I could see that lacy cheese edge oh I'm looking forward to that okay so we're gonna cut this into eight large pieces so perfectly down the middle well you can really hear the sound of how crisp that crust is okay give it a spin and cook it once down the center line oh that looks good I got some plates at the red corner peace corner cool there's only four corners so you got to know somebody alright alright so it's nice and sturdy so you can pick it up yeah you can see at the bottom it's nice and brown like a good focaccia hmm mm-hmm it really is more like focaccia than pizza with that crust I mean you can even see how golden it is on the bottom there that's nice and crisp and rich that sauce the complements of the dough yeah because there's not a lot of this sauce having it so intensely flavored with those herbs is really nice the cheese is a little bit different than mozzarella it really makes the pizza unique mm-hmm so if you want to make a motor City pizza yourself you don't need to track down a blue steel pan just grab a 9 by 13 and spray it with vegetable oil and olive oil make a focaccia dough and press it into the pan with well oiled hands after the dough is risen top with Monterey Jack cheese and those iconic lines of tomato sauce just 15 minutes in the oven and you're good from Cook's Country a terrific recipe for Detroit style pizza I think I'm gonna need another one running out [Music] thanks for watching cooks country from America's Test Kitchen so what'd you think leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or just say I now you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our Channel see you later alligator [Laughter]

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 257,716

Keywords: detroit style pizza, pizza, pizza recipes, homemade pizza, detroit pizza, detroit pizza recipe, how to make pizza, pizza recipe, cook's country detroit style pizza, cooks country detroit style pizza, cook's country, cooks country, americas test kitchen, america's test kitchen

Id: ijHutbC2JnE

Length: 10min 3sec (603 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 11 2019