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Sunday, May 1, 2016

Detroit Style Experiment

I have eaten Detroit style pizza once, at Jet's, which I think is probably not a perfect example of what constitutes Detroit style. Also, I have never read a word about how to make Detroit style, nor have I ever discussed Detroit style with anyone. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures (which I will add whenever I figure out how from my phone, but I think I came pretty close to nailing Detroit style on my first try. One thing I know is that this pizza was way the hell better than Jet's.

Here are the basics of how I did it.

100% Bread flour
60% Warm water
2% IDY
1.75% Salt
6% Oil
  • Mixed for 10 minutes.
  • Scaled into two 11 oz dough balls.
  • Put one dough ball in the fridge.
  • Put the other dough ball in a well-oiled Detroit style pan.
  • Allowed the dough ball to rise/proof for a couple hours at room temperature.
  • Press dough to make it take the shape of the pan.
  • Let it proof for maybe another hour.
  • Pressed it again, so it was pretty much the shape of the pan.
  • Covered the dough with mozzarella pretty heavily, all the way to the edges.
  • Applied four separate spoonfuls of sauce.
  • Baked on stone in 500° oven for 12 minutes.
Things I will do differently next time:
  1. Bake at 475 instead of 500.
  2. Use less dough; maybe 8 oz instead of 11 oz. (I can't remember the pan dimensions at the moment.
  3. Seems like there was one other thing.
I have several pics, but I need to figure out if I can post them from my phone. I may have more to add, but right now I'm in a hospital bed trying to recover from a gruesomely broken leg.