DEEP-DISH PIZZA

DEEP-DISH PIZZA, PILED HIGH WITH TOMATO sauce, cheese, and toppings, presents several challenges for the home cook. With so much topping, there is a danger of the crust becoming soggy. In our testing, we uncovered several tricks for keeping the crust soft but not soggy.

The first issue, of course, is what kind of pan works best. We tried baking sheets, perforated pizza pans, and round metal pans made especially for deep-dish pizza. We prefer the latter. Dough can be pushed down into the holes in a perforated pan, making the baked crust hard to remove. Baking sheets are not deep enough. We recommend a fourteen-inch round pizza pan that is two inches deep for the recipes in this chapter. We tested shiny and dark pans, and both browned the crust equally well.

When fitting the dough into the pan, build up a lip around the edge of the crust to keep the sauce and other toppings from oozing underneath the dough. We also found it helpful to bake the pizza crust without any toppings for several minutes. Baking the crust until it is set makes it less likely to absorb juices from the tomato sauce or vegetables. To keep the dough from bubbling as it bakes without toppings, simply prick it with a fork.

While thin-crust and grilled pizzas respond to high heat, a thick pan pizza needs time to cook through. If the oven temperature is too high, the crust will burn before the toppings are really hot or the center of the dough is cooked. We found an oven temperature of 400 degrees is perfect. Baking the pizza in the lower third of the oven promotes even browning of the bottom crust. For an even darker crust, bake the pan pizza on preheated quarry tiles or a pizza stone.

The resulting pizza will be about one and one-quarter inches high around the edges and about three-quarters inch deep in the center. Deep-dish pizza is breadier and saucier (use a fork and knife) than thin-crust pizza. A fourteen-inch pizza will feed four as a main course, six if feeding kids and adults.