Detroit Style Pizza

• 20 oz Pizza dough, 63 to 75% hydration (use the Dough Calculator, Detroit, 1 pan)
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 12 oz Brick cheese, or a blend of low-moisture mozzarella and Monterey Jack, block-grated fine
• 2 oz Cup and char pepperoni (optional)
• 1 cup Red sauce, warmed (see Festa Red Sauce)
• To finish (optional): grated Parmesan, hot honey

Step 1

Oil the pan. Pour 2 tablespoons of olive oil into your Festa Detroit pan and coat the bottom and sides. The ceramic finish barely needs it, but the oil browns and crisps the bottom crust.

Step 2

Press the dough into the pan. Set the dough ball in the center and press it out toward the corners with your fingertips. No rolling pin: you want to keep the air in. If it springs back, rest it 10 to 15 minutes and press again.

It doesn't need to be perfect. A little variation in thickness is part of the character.

Step 3

Proof in the pan. Brush a little olive oil over the top, cover, and let it rise at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours, until puffy and filling the corners. If your kitchen oven has a proof setting, use it.

Keep it covered so the surface doesn't dry out and harden. Use this time to warm up the Festa.

Step 4

Preheat the Festa. Bottom burner on high, top burner low to medium, 15 to 20 minutes. Target a stone temperature of 500 to 600°F. Starting a little hotter is fine: it drops into range once the top burner goes off.

Check the stone with an infrared thermometer, not the air. In cold weather, preheat to 650 to 700°F.

Step 5

Par bake, dough only. Stop the stone rotation, turn the top burner off, center the pan on the stone, and restart rotation. Bake 2 minutes. The top should be set and still blonde, and the dough should pull slightly away from the pan walls.

Top burner off is what keeps the top pale. That gap at the walls is where the cheese will drop in and caramelize into the frico edge.

Step 6

Hold the oven at temperature. While you dress the pizza, turn the top burner back to low or medium so the oven stays at 500 to 600°F for the second bake.

Pan grabbers make pulling a hot pan out of the oven much easier.

Step 7

Build the cheese wall. Pack the cheese blend generously against the pan walls all the way around, ramped up like a slope. You can't really use too much. Then cover the top of the dough with a lighter layer of cheese.

The ramp melts down the sides and under the crust. That is the frico edge.

Step 8

Add pepperoni. Lay cup and char pepperoni across the top, as much as you like. Cheese or pepperoni is traditional. Sausage or caramelized onions are great too.

No sauce yet. It goes on after the bake.

Step 9

Final bake. Stop rotation, turn the top burner off, center the pan, restart rotation. Bake about 10 minutes (9 to 11), until the edge is a deep, dark golden brown and the cheese is bubbling.

Err on the side of under rather than over: a long bake dries the crust. Keep a quick note of time and temperature in your phone, since the season changes how fast it bakes.

Step 10

Rest and release. Set the pan on the stone or a heat-safe surface, never straight on the counter. Rest 2 to 3 minutes so the cheese edge hardens, then run a long spatula around the walls and lift the pizza straight out onto a board.

Two spatulas, one on each side, work if you don't have a long one.

Step 11

Finish and serve. Dust with Parmesan and drizzle hot honey if you like. Spoon warm sauce over each square, either in dollops or the classic two racing stripes. Serve right away.

Not eating it all at once? Hold the sauce and add it right before serving.

Author

Jesse Pricer

Restaurateur & Founder

Jesse Pricer is the founder of Festa Pizza Co. and the driving force behind the brand's mission: to make home-crafted pizza accessible, social, and genuinely fun. After years of hosting backyard pizza nights, and owning nearly every oven on the market along the way, Jesse set out to build something better: an oven engineered to enable a beginner to make an edible pizza on their first try, and a seasoned pizza chef to push the limits. Every detail of the oven was determined by Jesse with a purpose. "Making pizza outdoors is a completely different discipline than making it in an indoor restaurant kitchen," Jesse says. "Every detail, from the dual-burner system to the oven's geometry, had to be designed with that in mind." Jesse's mission is to restore and strengthen relationships built around the family table. Outside of the world of pizza, Jesse is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and seasoned investment professional with nearly 30 years in the industry. He has been married to his wife, Brandi, for almost 30 years and has three adult children and one grandchild.