`Detroit-Style Pizza with EVOO Crust - Olive Oil Times

Detroit-Style Pizza with EVOO Crust

Detroit-style pizzas are so en vogue. These rectangular wonders have a focaccia-like thick crust that's topped with hunks of cheese and runners of tomato sauce. The toppings spread all the way to the edge, resulting in a darkly caramelized and crunchy crust. 
Detroit-Style Pizza with EVOO Crust
By Patterson Watkins
Apr. 25, 2022 12:59 UTC

Detroit-style piz­zas are so en vogue. These rec­tan­gu­lar won­ders have a focac­cia-like thick crust that’s topped with hunks of cheese and run­ners of tomato sauce. The top­pings spread all the way to the edge, result­ing in a darkly caramelized and crunchy crust. 

Traditional Detroit-style piz­zas use a very region­ally spe­cific cheese as their top­ping (that’s very hard to get out­side of Detroit). We mimic those fla­vors with a blend of moz­zarella, muen­ster, and jack. To high­light the cheese blend and pep­per­oni, we use a medium to robust inten­sity extra vir­gin olive oil in the crust recipe and for cook­ing the pizza. A more robust olive oil offers bold fla­vor, bal­anced bit­ter­ness, and a promi­nent pep­pery fin­ish, per­fect for pizza.

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Detroit-Style Pizza with EVOO Crust

5from3votes
Course: MainCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium
Servings

4 – 6

serv­ings
Prep time

10

min­utes
Cooking time

20

min­utes

The dough can be made ahead of time and refrig­er­ated for a day or two and then allowed to rise and rest at room tem­per­a­ture until nice and pil­lowy. Feel free to exper­i­ment with other top­pings to per­fect your pizza.

Ingredients

  • Olive Oil Pizza Dough:
  • 2 1/2cupsall-pur­pose flour

  • 1 1/2 tea­spoonsdry-active yeast

  • 1 table­spoonsalt

  • 1cupwarm water

  • 1 table­spoonmedium to robust inten­sity extra vir­gin olive oil, plus more for driz­zling

  • Pizza Toppings:
  • 4ozmon­terey jack cheese, cut into small cubes

  • 4ozmuen­ster cheese, cut into small cubes

  • 4ozfull-fat moz­zarella, cut into small cubes

  • 2 1/2cupspizza sauce

  • 5ozpep­per­oni, sliced

  • Garnish:
  • Italian sea­son­ing

  • crushed red pep­per flaked

  • fresh basil leaves

Directions

  • Place flour, yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fit­ted with the dough hook attach­ment, and stir to com­bine. Add water and olive oil, and stir on low until the dough is semi-formed and a lit­tle shaggy.
  • Increase the mixer’s speed to medium-low and con­tinue to knead the dough until smooth, a lit­tle sticky, and shiny (about 10 min­utes). Remove the bowl and dough hook from the mixer and form the dough into a ball. Cover the bowl with plas­tic wrap and set aside to rise for 2 hours, or until the dough has dou­bled in size.
  • Drizzle the bot­tom of a Detroit-Style pizza pan or rec­tan­gu­lar cake pan with 2 table­spoons of olive oil. Once the dough has rested and risen, trans­fer to the oiled pan, and press the dough towards the edges of the pan (no wor­ries, the dough at this stage will spring back from the edges). Cover the pan with plas­tic wrap and set aside for 1 hour.
  • Meanwhile, pre­heat oven to 500°F, plac­ing an oven rack right in the cen­ter of the oven.
  • After this sec­ond rest­ing phase, press the dough into the edges of the pan (this time it will go more will­ingly, if not, set the dough aside for 30 min­utes and try again). Top the pizza with half of the pep­per­oni slices and cheese cubes (no need to leave a crust bor­der with Detroit-style pizza). Spoon pizza sauce in hor­i­zon­tal 3 lines, about 3/4 cup of sauce per line, across the top of the pizza, leav­ing a lit­tle room between each line of sauce.
  • Top the pizza with the remain­ing pep­per­oni slices and place in the oven. Bake pizza for 15 – 20 min­utes or until the edges are a lit­tle black and bub­bly and the cheese has melted and start­ing to brown in places. Remove from the oven and set aside to rest for 2 min­utes.
  • Run a thin metal spat­ula around the edge of the pan to loosen the pizza and care­fully trans­fer to a cut­ting board. Cut the pizza into square slices and sprin­kle with Italian sea­son­ing, crushed red pep­per flakes (optional), and fresh basil leaves before serv­ing. 

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