Find TV Listings
Listen To Our Radio Show
Follow Us
From America's Test Kitchen Season 2: Pizza Night
Unlike its thin-crust cousin, deep-dish pizza has a soft, chewy, thick crust and can stand up to substantial toppings. We wanted to try our hand at this restaurant-style pizza at home, without a lot of fuss, and it had to taste better than takeout.
Most of the allure of deep-dish pizza is in the crust, so it was important to get it right. After trying numerous ingredients and techniques, we discovered that a boiled potato gave the crust exactly the right qualities: It was soft and moist, yet with a bit of chew and good structure. The potato even made the unbaked dough easier to handle. To keep the outside of the crust from toughening during baking, we added a generous amount of olive oil to the pan before putting in the dough. Toppings put onto the crust before it went into the oven weighed it down so that it didn’t rise much and became dense, so we baked the crust untopped for a few minutes first. Our deep-dish crust wasn’t just a platform for the topping; it had great flavor and texture of its own.
Makes one 14-inch pizza, serving 4 to 6
Prepare the topping while the dough is rising so it will be ready at the same time the dough is ready. Baking the pizza in a deep-dish pan on a hot pizza stone or quarry tiles will help produce a crisp, well-browned bottom crust. Otherwise, a heavy rimless cookie sheet (do not use an insulated cookie sheet) will work almost as well. If you've only got a rimmed cookie sheet, turn it upside down and bake the pizza on the flat rimless side. The amount of oil used to grease the pan may seem excessive, but in addition to preventing sticking, the oil helps the crust brown nicely.
Start Your 14-Day Free Trial Membership
Get all 13 years of America’s Test Kitchen:
Dear Friend,
It is hard to believe, but 2013 marks the thirteenth anniversary of the America’s Test Kitchen television show. Since our very first season, we have been public television’s most watched cooking show and have shared hundreds of our best recipes, equipment reviews, ingredient taste tests, and cooking techniques with our viewers. And, AmericasTestKitchen.com is the only place you’ll find everything we’ve ever featured on the show — every recipe, equipment rating, and taste test since the very first episode of America’s Test Kitchen.
As you may know, America’s Test Kitchen is the home of “Recipes That Work,” and our mission is to be your trusted source for recipes that work every time you use them. Our test cooks spend their days obsessively testing recipes until they offer consistently great results. As we like to say here, “We make the mistakes so you don’t have to.” So, try out our website for a 14-Day, No-Hassle Trial Offer. Whether you are new to America’s Test Kitchen or have been an avid viewer for years, I think you’ll find AmericasTestKitchen.com to be an invaluable resource.
Thanks for your consideration,
Christopher Kimball
Founder and Publisher
