This is a pizza?

Time: 3 Hours 30 minutes + Cooling

Ingredient Availability: 4/5

Difficulty: 4/5

Who doesn’t like pizza? Honestly, just looking at the end result, it’s really hard to see how it can be called a pizza in any capacity. It really just looks like some kind of savory pie. I guess that’s kind of what pizza is, but I think you get what I’m saying. This recipe is from the Baking Bible and with such a name, I have high expectations.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

While most of the ingredients for this recipe are pretty common and easy to find, I did make some omissions. I didn’t have any dried thyme (and didn’t want to buy any), to I just used Italian seasoning, which has thyme in it. Also, the recipe calls for 8oz of Soppressata, but I couldn’t find a link of that sausage, so I used a variety pack of three dried sausages that included Soppressata. Also, I only had 6oz of meat instead of 8. Other than those couple of things, I was able to find and use all of the ingredients needed.

Tools:

9”x2” circular cake pan with removable bottom (I used a springform pan)
Food Processor (optional)
Plastic wrap
Mesh strainer

Cooking Review:

Prep for dough: 14 minutes

This recipe is so big that I needed to prepare twice. The first go around, I cut up my butter and put it into the refrigerator. I also went ahead and measured out the flour, herbs, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

Bringing Dough Together: 13 minutes

I put in all of the dry ingredients into the food processor and mixed them together. The flour was added in two steps. Next, I added the butter and processed until the butter pieces pretty much disappeared and the mixture looked pretty homogenous (like a coarse meal). The egg and milk were whisked together and added to the dry ingredients. The mixture was processed until it just began to clump up together.

Knead & Wrap Dough: 15 minutes

The dough needed to be kneaded a bit before being split up and refrigerated. As the recipe suggests, I put the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap and used it to knead the dough together, hydrating most of the dry flour. This worked pretty well to prevent sticking issues. Once the dough was together, which took about 8 minutes of kneading, I separated about a third of the dough and wrapped the two pieces separately. They were put in the refrigerator to rest and firm up for 45 minutes.

Prep for Filling: 17 minutes

The second stint of preparation for this recipe included grating and slicing the cheeses, as well as chopping the sausage.

Make Filling: 9 minutes

To make the filling, I pushed the ricotta through a fine mesh strainer before adding the pepper, eggs, and other ingredients. I whisked that mixture together and added the grated pecorino to finish it.

Rolling out Dough and preparing pan: 39 minutes

The first time I tried to roll out the dough, it was a big failure. The recipe says to let the dough sit out for about 10 minutes to soften up so it can be rolled out, which is what I did. However, after rolling out, the dough was far to soft and sticky to be transferred into the springform pan. So, what I did instead was put the dough back together into an approximate disk and put it in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. Once I took it out, I immediately rolled it out on the plastic wrap and was able to transfer it into the pan by placing the pan on top of the dough and inverting it. I let the dough fall into the pan and filled any holes and thin areas with the excess dough around the edges.

Filling The crust: 7 Minutes

To fill the crust, I started with a cup of the filling, followed by the mozzarella slices and then the sausage. This was repeated once more and topped with the remaining filling.

Lattice: 9 minutes

I rolled out the smaller piece of dough that I had in the refrigerator and cut it into strips. Then, I placed half of the strips on top of the filling in one direction and crossed them in the other direction with the remaining strips. The dough walls were pretty tall, so I decided to fold them over and down onto of the ends of the strips to clean up the perimeter of the pie.

Egg Glaze and Baking: 1 hour 8 minutes

I mixed an egg yolk with some milk and brushed it over the dough. I had a pizza steel preheating in the oven while I was preparing everything else, so I put the pie on that to bake for an hour and 6 minutes. I was trying to get more color on the curst, but this was as good as I could get. At this point, I just had to let the pie cool before removing from the springform pan and serving.

Analysis:

(I ate this the next day; reheated in the oven)

I know that the description of this recipe did mention that the crust was sweet, but I wasn’t really expecting what I was met with. The somewhat crumbly yet slightly crunchy crust had a pretty nice flavor, which is mostly sweet but with a hint of sage and Italian herbs. When eaten on its own, you can really taste those herbs more, but they kinda get lost when eaten with the filling. Speaking of the filling, it is very ricotta forward, which I like. There’s plenty of cheese flavor, but the sausage doesn’t add much flavor, unfortunately. It does add some chewiness, but I really wish it had more savoriness to it. Despite this, I think that this pie’s components work pretty well together. There’s a pretty good balance of light flavors, but it is clear that that balance is leaning sweet. While I did enjoy this recipe and I like how unique the experience is, it’s hard to say that it’s worth all the time and effort it took to get there. While some ingredients really reward you with something exceptional when you put in hours of active time, effort, and waiting, this one just gives you something that’s good. That’s it, just good. If it were easier and took less time, I would probably give this recipe a 7/10, but given what it takes in reality, I have to give this a 6/10. If you want a challenge in the kitchen and have plenty of time, go ahead and give this a shot. If you want something that’s a guaranteed hit, look elsewhere.

P.S.

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