Making Deep Dish Pizza at home.

Who has a tried and true recipe for deep dish dough? I want to make this at home maybe Friday, or this weekend and would like a little advice so the results are good the first time.

I've found a few different dough recipes online and assume they would work, but thought I would seek knowledge here also.

Also for anyone that does this, can the dough be made a day ahead of time?

Cooking times would be appreciated also.

Thanks.

Wish I could help. I only make gluten-free doughs, so my recipe wouldn't help you much.

For deep dish pizza dough, I usually rely on Pat Bruno's recipe from his book "The Great Chicago-Style Pizza Cookbook". See

http://www.ochef.com/r111.htm

It makes a somewhat bland dough and I've been meaning to try something else for a while (I just don't make deep dish pizza all that often). I use a 14" diameter by 2" deep round baking dish for deep dish (you can get these at restaurant supply stores).

After parbaking the crust, I brush it with olive oil. Add the cheese, sauce, and then sausage. Bake at 475 degrees on the bottom rake for about 5 minutes. Move the pizza up two racks and bake for another 30 minutes, until the sausage is cooked through and the crust is golden brown. Check the pizza after 20 or 25 minutes to be sure it isn't cooking too fast.

Another great site to check out is pizzamaking.com. Their recipe page is http://www.pizzamaking.com/pizza_recipes.html.

Yes, dough can be made ahead of time. Instead of a room-temperature rise of an hour and a half, you can do a day-long rise in the fridge. Alternatively, after you do your room temperature rise, fold it over on itself a few times, wrap in plastic, and store in the fridge for a day or two.

Here's a tried and true recipe for homemade Chicago-style pizza. The recipe is adapted to more accessible 10-inch cake pans, but I have also used a 9-inch with no worries. I have also experimented using a cast iron skillet, but the crust turns out a bit soggy since the pan takes longer to heat up. I preheated the skillet on the stove top once, and the results were much better.

This technique will ensure a crust that isn't soggy:
http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/cookbook/deep_dish_pizza.html


key points:
- blind bake the crust
- preheat the oven higher than your final baking temp to account for heat lost when opening the oven door
- the bottom needs an immediate surge of heat to prevent sogginess, which is why a baking stone is called for. I haven't tried using the lowest shelf of the oven, which is listed as an alternative.


I have made the dough up to 2 days ahead for this recipe, and instead of using the lukewarm water called for, use ice water to delay the rise. Stick the dough in the coldest part of your ref before the first rise. I actually always make the dough in advance using slow fermentation since it makes for a more complex crust.

On the day you're making the pizza, it should have risen slightly, and leave it out at room temp for a few hours to take off the chill and wait until it doubles.

Thanks Kanin. That's the type of information I was looking for. It's looking like deep dish pizza for dinner on Friday night.

A few years back, before his legal troubles and subsequent death, Jeff Smith aka "the Frugal Gourmet", did an American cookbook in which he included recipes for his best simulation of Uno's recipe for both crust and pie. In the late 80s, while still living in the deep south, this became my go to for pizza parties where friends would be invited over to make their own pies in nine inch cake pans while drinking heavily.

My recollection is that this made a pretty good pie. But, in the spirit of disclosure, I was both 23 and shitfaced when I ate most of them.

I googled Frugal Gourmet and Pizza and found a website with his recipe and a couple of others:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/deepdish.php

There is nothing really that special about the dough...most of the big houses that I know of use the same dough for thin or deep/stuffed...it's just how you handle it. In my opinion, making a deep dish pizza is easier than a traditional thin crust because the dough thickness and technique is more forgiving...a well oiled stright sided pan, plop some dough in and spread it out working it up the sides, prick the bottom with a fork, layer sliced cheese, then your toppings/fillings, and then a good thick pizza sauce. Depending on the size, I usually go 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees.

Another poster mentioned it, but a GREAT resource is www.pizzamaking.com .

I agree - working with deep dish dough is surprisingly easy. With Bruno's dough that I linked to above, I don't need to use a rolling pin to roll out the dough. You can quite easily use your fingertips to press it out.

Actually, three people have now linked to www.pizzamaking.com, but hey, it's a good site!

Thanks again everyone. I'm having a buddy over for pizza and booze on Friday before the wife drops off half drunk at the bowling alley.

I'll try and remember to get pictures and post the results.

Well I made pizza last friday and they turned out pretty well. Maybe could have baked them a few minutes longer. I'm not sure if it was because of the ingredients sausage vs hawaiian, or because one had cheese on top, and the other on the bottom, but the sausage one came out of the pan a lot easier. Maybe it was because of the extra moisture from the pineapple that, that pizza did not firm up as well.

Here are some pics:

Mixing:



After 5 minutes in the oven:



Filled with toppings:


Hawaiian baked:



Sausage baked:





I'm sure I'll be making these again. The dough recipe was easy and I thought made for really delicious crust. I think having a stone for my oven would have probably helped crisp up the bottom of the curst, but it did have some crunch to it.

Thanks to everyone that offered input.

Those look really nice!

I just wanted to add that I recently read somewhere about using a springform pan for making deep dish pizza. Don't recall much else, but it struck me as an interesting idea, especially if you have one to devote to just pizza.

Anyway, I'm going to try that pizza making website...what is it again? LOL just kidding.

I use heavy aluminum cake pans that have a removable bottom. The removable bottom makes it quite easy. You can get these at most good kitchen/restaurant supply stores. Springform pans that have removable sides would also be really useful. Just be sure the metal is heavy enough.

Most restaurant supply stores in Chicago sell deep dish pizza dishes. These don't have removable sides or bottoms, so you may want to serve directly out of the pan. The advantage of these is that they are dark and that helps brown the crust.

Brandon, thanks for posting the pictures. Pizzas look great. But after all of this talk about recipes and techiques, what did you do?

I used the method from the www.leitesculinaria.com that kanin posted.

However that link seems to not work anymore, I don't know if they revamped their website or what.

I followed the instructions step for step.

brandon_w wrote:I used the method from the www.leitesculinaria.com that kanin posted.

However that link seems to not work anymore, I don't know if they revamped their website or what.

The page is cached here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:a09WQCUOZUYJ:www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/cookbook/deep_dish_pizza.html+reinhart+deep+dish+recipe&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

You can download the recipe as a pdf in that link. If the cache link doesn't work anymore, consider getting the book.. The book contains about 12 distinct formulas for regional dough variations in the US and Italy and that alone makes it worth getting. The author is also one of the most well respected authors and instructors on bread baking, so he knows a thing or two about dough.

Just registered for this board, which suprisingly I found mentioned on a Rome Trip advisor board.

So I consider myself a "pizza maker", and have an old family method I have worked out over the years- "Old Forge Style Pizza" ...but that will be for another post.

This was my first attempt at Chicago deep dish, and used a couple of the techniques described. I used Jeff "Would you like to help me in the Kitchen young man?" Smiths dough recipe (Sorry, I like and admire Jeff's work and use a couple of his books... I just couldn't resist being snarky).
I stuck to it with precision, something I sometimes have trouble with. It was a nice dough to work with, but it was a lot of dough, more than you could use for 2 nine inch pans. It might even be enough for 2 12's or 14's.
I "overdoughed" on both my pies, and didn't stick to the 1/8th inch depth dough suggestion that can somewhere from this thread. I also "par baked" per one suggestion, and will do that again.

The sauce and stuffing was real good, although there was no mention of how much meat to put in... I did not put in enough.

I learned something on the sausage. I simply took the ground "log" and baked it, 350 for 20 minutes and came out with a perfect log to slice patties into... Here I thought patties was a special product all this time.

All in all I was happy with my first attmpt and think by my 10th attempt, I can figure this one out. Not enough meat, cheese and too much dough. It reminded more of an American Airlines "Chicago Style Pizza" than an Uno or Lou M's, but I am on my way to figuring out.

I've made deep dish pizza several times, but it's never turned out quite the way I wanted it to turn out. I've tried recipe after recipe -- Everybody Loves Pizza, Pizza (by Morgan and Gemignani), and several others including a couple of the ones mentioned above. Tonight I tried a different recipe, one for deep dish sausage pizza which was published some years ago in the Chicago Tribune, and which the Tribune claimed was supposed to replicate the original deep dish pizza. This was definitely the best crust I have made to date. I wouldn't call it excellent, but it was very good . . . the edges were a little thick and the flavor was nice, but not as good as what I'm used to from Malnati's (particularly their butter crust).

My goal was to come as close as possible to the Malnati's style of crust. There's a recipe for deep dish pizza purportedly from Malnati's on the Food Network's website, but I have yet to try it. This crust recipe from the Trib used minimal yeast, minimal olive oil, all purpose flour and cornmeal, (I substituted corn flour), salt, sugar and water. I greased the pan with olive oil. Before I filled the crust, I brushed it all over with melted butter (hoping to duplicate Malnati's butter crust), pricked with a fork, and filled with a single layer of sliced part-skim mozzarella, about 1 cup of crushed San Marzano tomatoes mixed with some fresh basil, salt, garlic powder and black pepper. I then topped with some shredded parmesan and romano cheese, fresh sliced jalapenos and raw Italian sausage (I had sliced some yellow onion, but didn't realize that I failed to put it on the pizza until it was 15 minutes into baking.

What I liked about the crust is that it was definitely less bread-like than most I've tried and had a bit of a pastry-like flakiness. But brushing the crust with butter didn't produce the Malnati's effect as much as I hoped. I'll keep experimenting. Also, I might have used just a bit too much tomato sauce, but that's easy to fix. And although the recipe suggested an 8-inch pan, I found it fit more appropriately in a 10-inch pan. Anyway, here are some pictures of the result.

I love the idea of using a springform pan for deep dish! I have no truly exciting crust recipes to share, but I have gotten my best results with a stoneware deep dish pan; it cooks very evenly and gets (and stays) quite hot, like all stoneware will. Yes, the mother-in-law's Pampered Chef addiction has finally paid off.

The Frugal Gourmet/Jeff Smith recipe comes close.

JeffB wrote:The Frugal Gourmet/Jeff Smith recipe comes close.

Are you referring to my post and saying that his crust recipe comes close to Malnati's? I'm most curious to find out how Malnati's does the butter crust. Once I replaced oil with butter, now I brushed with butter . . . but still not there. That being said, I would have been quite happy to have been served my pizza at any deep dish pizza place so I suppose I'm on my way.

BR wrote:

JeffB wrote:The Frugal Gourmet/Jeff Smith recipe comes close.

Are you referring to my post and saying that his crust recipe comes close to Malnati's? I'm most curious to find out how Malnati's does the butter crust. Once I replaced oil with butter, now I brushed with butter . . . but still not there. That being said, I would have been quite happy to have been served my pizza at any deep dish pizza place so I suppose I'm on my way.

How about using cold chunks of butter in the crust as when making pastry dough to make it flaky?

imsscott wrote:

BR wrote:

JeffB wrote:The Frugal Gourmet/Jeff Smith recipe comes close.

Are you referring to my post and saying that his crust recipe comes close to Malnati's? I'm most curious to find out how Malnati's does the butter crust. Once I replaced oil with butter, now I brushed with butter . . . but still not there. That being said, I would have been quite happy to have been served my pizza at any deep dish pizza place so I suppose I'm on my way.

How about using cold chunks of butter in the crust as when making pastry dough to make it flaky?

First time I ever tried to duplicate the recipe that's what I tried because I knew from my baking experiences that's how you achieve flakiness. But I didn't work. I might try again though because it makes perfect sense.

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