Why I Oughta...

Applying the formulation with a 51% hydration factor from last wee k and a 190 gram dough ball yielded a nice result.  Laying on a ring of Vermont White Cheddar lead to a nice frico.  Notes:  I used ZERO bench flour and was able to roll out the ball to a something close to 12".  Using Crisco as the sort of 'paste', I was able to stretch the skin out and it didn't snap back. This one has Roni cups and a heavy hand of post-oven Romano.  No baking steel involved, but I think I need to go back to putting the steel on the rack above to provide for that refractory heat in order to get the top just.right (well done).  

For the better part of 2021, I have been making (exclusively) Bar Pies at home to the exclusion of just about any other type of pizza.  I've made the occasional Detroit-style, but for the most part, it has been 12" round Bar Pies for 10+ months .  However, Bar Pies have a specific provenance - that of the east coast.  New Jersey.  Massachusetts.  Those places make "Bar Pie".  What do we make in Chicago?  Something called Tavern pizza.  Or Tavern-style pizza.  Or, just Chicago Thin Crust.   Bar Pie isn't too far from Chicago Thin, but it is a bit different.  So, I've decided that 2022 is going to be my Chicago Thin/Bar Pie hybrid year.  My maiden voyage down this path was this past weekend when I took a Chicago Thin recipe that I found on YouTube , modified it to be a little bit *more* like my base Bar Pie formulation in some ways, dropped the hydration down a bit and then, finally did a couple of downsizing from a 14" formulation to a 12"-based cha

A week later and another Bar Pie shot below.  Last week, I showed a photo and talked about my Bar Pie Progress with a sausage and giardiniera 12-incher (well done, of course) where I talked about what I've been working on since early Spring this year.  This is a 12" bar pie loaded with cupped pepperoni.  I didn't run out for the *right* cheese, so I used what was on hand.  Learned a little bit there - and will go back to my traditional blend.  This one, however, created a little bit of frico that you can see on the bottom right of photo below. Nice Cups. Loaded with Pepperoni. Base chassis of: Crushed Tomatoes, cheese blend. Finished with a heavy hand of post-oven Romano and basil .  Hot Giardiniera added (pre-oven) to half. Menu-wise, I haven't quite figured out how to talk about adding giardiniera to the base bar pie names.  Does it become a different pie? Or should all the base menu pizzas be offered with giardiniera as a 'plus-up'?  Along with pre-ove

August marks six-month mark on my Bar Pizza journey.  Started back in March and have posted a few times including my ' pockmark progress ' and how I've tried both pre-and- post-bake ricotta .  I've recently settled some of that (I'm now using Chellino Ricotta pre-bake on my bbq chicken 'stunt pizza'.  More on that in a future post).    Here are a few recent photos showing my progress.   First, with so little yeast, I'm surprised by this kind of structure: Below, you can see a sort-of edge profile.  I'm happy with the thickness, the ply-ability and the crisp on these pizzas.  I do, however, give them first a cooling-rack rest followed by a post-cut dimple pan.   Here's a little frico below.  I've recently moved away from using any sort of cheddar - as it oils-off differently than the other cheeses I'm using. And the full monty - below.  Cup and Char post-bake basil. Here's another profile below: And the top-down, cheese only full monty

Yesterday I shared some of my Bar Pie progress shots and talked about pockmarks and what-have-you.  As part of this journey, I've been thinking about some of what Adam Kuban called "stunt pizzas" during the class I took with him earlier this year.  One of the pizzas that I've had in the back of my mind is this shot I posted on the blog back in 2015 .  It has a ricotta that I'm pretty sure is added post-bake.  And that's what I did recently; my first time with post-bake ricotta. Chellino Ricotta to be exact. I'll be working this stunt pizza out a little bit more because I think it has some promise.  'Roni cups, post-bake ricotta, basil and Mike's Hot Honey.  Just like the Spicy Bear from 2015 .  Well, almost like that.

Just about two years ago, I posted some photos of the new (to me) Ezzo pepperoni that I bought online that was billed as 'cup and char' pepperoni .  I was a little bit late to trying the Prince Street Pizza square that seemed to have kicked off the cupping pepperoni trend, but I was able to get to it in April of 2019 and found it to live up to the hype .  For me, the Ezzo stuff was hard to get (had to order online), so it wasn't something that I was getting all the time.  I had a really nice, thick-cut replacement that Mariano's carried, but they stopped carrying it for some reason during the pandemic. That's when I put my antenna up about new pepperoni.  Over the past year or so, I've been hearing/reading about Hormel introducing something called Rosa Grande .  It is, however, foodservice only.   After reading up on the PizzaMaking.com forums , it turns out that most people there believe that this latest market entrant:  Cup N Crisp from Hormel is really the sa

I think I've disclosed here on the blog about how my favorite Instagram handle is @ronicups .  As in Pepperoni Cups.  They curate and post photos of pizza that features cup-and-char pepperoni.  Or "Grease Chalices" as Adam Kuban calls them.  I've written about Kuban before here on the blog . He coined the term back in 2005 .  But Cup and Char Pepperoni has only become quite vogue in the past few years and I just covered the concept here on the blog back in November when I bought some online . Where I think I would point to as the 'touchstone' #ronicup pizza is the square from a place called Prince Street Pizza as it became "pizza famous" because of the photos of what they call the "Spicy Spring" that were showing up on Instagram.  Just look at the @ronicups handle and you'll see many pics of the square. So, imagine my delight when I found an hour in the late afternoon on a recent trip to the Edelman office in SoHo where I cou

Over the years, I've honed by at-home pizza game.  First it was the discovery and use of Chellino Scamorza Cheese out of Joliet .  Won't make a pie without it now.  Then it was the acquisition of new cutter pans , serving pans and stands .  And now it is buying cup and char pepperoni on the internet. PennMac sells Ezzo 38MM Pepperoni in 1 lb bags and I took the plunge recently.    The bag you see above is one of two that I bought online - but I also bought an Ezzo stick that I haven't sliced.  If you follow the instagram account /ronicups (which I don't know why you wouldn't be, right??), or visited a hip, new pizza place that is making Detroit or bar pies, you've undoubtedly come across Ezzo cup and char pepperoni. View this post on Instagram Roni Cups on a square pizza by @danwongishungry at @psp_nyc #squarepie #squarepizza A post shared by Pepperoni - Roni Cups 🍕 (@ronicups) on Oct 8, 2018