Detroit-style pizza is a deep-dish rectangular pizza with a thick crisp crust topped with Wisconsin brick cheese and a cooked tomato-based sauce.
Traditionally the toppings are layered with the cheese below the sauce. The cooked sauce is always the final layer and is applied in dollops or in “racing stripes”.
The cheese is spread to the edges and caramelises against the pan, giving the crust a lacy, crispy edge. According to trade journal Pizza Today, the cheese being piled high right to the edges and against the pan is “the key to this pizza.”
wikipedia
There are clearly some specifics to this dish, which are absolutely essential to making it as authentic as possible. In my experience, these specifics apply to certain ingredients (notably the cheese), certain tools (the pan) and the technique itself.
Fortunately due to (a) the power of Amazon.com and (b) to Illinois being neighbours of the great Cheese State of Wisconsin, our ability to get hold of the pan and the otherwise elusive “Brick Cheese” is assured…not so sure we’ll have the same luck with the latter back in the UK though – that’ll be a problem. Anyhow, our local “Pete’s” supermarket usually has this in stock, so all is well for now.
The pan itself, on the face of it, is a simple thing, but of course (and as ever) there’s more to it. This is a Detroit Pizza Pan of specific size and material, in this case, from Amazon. Did I need it ? YES. Although could I have lived without it at that price ? Probably. But where’s the fun in that ? Given the resulting popularity of this pizza, this pan is going to get a lot of use.
The right cheese The right pan
Next is to get a decent recipe and Serious Eats has a method that I’ve now used successfully a few times. I’ve also experimented too – with Bread Flour v Italian OO Pizza Flour (Bread Flour wins, by the way); with the “make from scratch” sauce v canned pizza sauce (“make from scratch” wins…but only just); and even tried a low hydration mozzarella instead of brick cheese (this was due to us having somewhat of a glut of mozzarella and not being bothered to go to Pete’s – as it happens, brick wins !). At the end of the day the author of that Serious Eats recipe has it nailed – I would suggest trying to replicate as faithfully as possible…it’s worth putting in the time and effort into finding the right ingredients and following to the letter.
This recipe is definitely one I will keep going with. The end result is great and very popular. Further scope for experimentation in the ingredient/topping area is definitely there – so far we’ve stuck to the traditional pepperoni (got to be a decent quality one !) but I see no reason why the usual toppings wouldn’t be appropriate. Also, so far these have been kitchen-oven made – I didn’t see the benefit in firing up the Kamado Joe or setting up the DoJoe for what is a 20 minute cook. Not even a pizza stone in sight for this one. Some of these are probably worth a try one day though…
You can see from the images above compared to the one below the difference between the mozzarella and brick versions…at least in appearance. There’s a distinctive chewy density to the brick cheese which is very pleasant, and as you can see, the characteristic caramelisation on the edges of this pizza can be achieved with both. So as a backup, I’d say a fairly dry mozzarella makes a good substitute.
I’m sure this won’t be the final word on this most delicious topic…
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