Detroit-Style Pizza How-To

Plus: Three Tips for Ensuring Success

Hello Pizza Friends,

Early last week, when I realized Super Bowl Sunday was upon us, I considered postponing the proposed Tomato Pie post and writing about Detroit-style pizza instead, which I love for these sorts of occasion.

If you are unfamiliar, Detroit-style pizza is thick pan pizza characterized by a crisp, exterior cheese frico crust. Traditionally, it’s made with Wisconsin brick cheese, which goes on before the sauce and gets spread all the way to the edges. Toppings, too, go on before the sauce, which gets applied sparingly or in two or three “racing” stripes.

Although I don’t love this “upside down” layering, I love DSP, which is not unlike a cheesed and sauced focaccia. Like Sicilian-style pizza, DSP is great for entertaining not only because it feeds more people than Neapolitan and other styles of pizza, but also because so much of the prep work can be done in advance, from making the dough to parbaking and topping it.

While the Super Bowl is now behind us, plenty of occasions demanding the presence of friends and large pan pizzas remain in the weeks and months ahead. I wrote more extensively about DSP here, but today I want to focus on the foundation — the crust — and three tips for nailing it:

1. Use a high-hydration dough.

2. Allow for a long fermentation at each phase of the process.

3. Parbake it.

Friends, of all the styles of pizzas, I found DSP to be the hardest to get right. When I first began experimenting, I found the finished pizzas to be too thick, too gummy, too doughy, and too heavily topped. I also couldn’t figure out how to achieve those enviable lacy frico crusts flooding my Instagram feed.

But when I focused on getting the crust right, everything else fell into place. I explore each of the three tips in more detail below. As always, let me know if you have any questions.

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The Video: Detroit-Style Pizza

Last week I noticed Substack had auto-generated captions for my video, which caused duplicate captions to show up, so this week, I didn’t add them to my video. You may have to enable them by clicking on the three dots in the lower right-hand corner of the video… let me know if you have trouble.

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Three Tips

Use a high-hydration dough.

A high-hydration dough is essential for creating a light and airy crust similar to that of focaccia. This one is 83% hydration and the one in Pizza Night is even higher.

Allow for a long fermentation at each phase of the process.

The longer dough ferments, the more gas bubbles are produced, and when those gas bubbles hit the hot oven, they expand, creating a light, porous crust.

Here, you’ll let the dough rise at room temperature for 10 to 12 hours. If time permits, you’ll then transfer it to the fridge for 1 to 2 days (or longer if needed). Finally, you’ll let the dough proof at room temperature for 3 to 5 hours, depending on the time of year and the temperature of your kitchen. Taking time with this final proof is especially important — if you rush it, your dough may shrink too much during the parbake, which will create too much of a gap between the crust and the pan, which will make creating a frico crust very difficult.

Parbake the dough.

Parbaking the dough will ensure your final pizza is not at all gummy or doughy, ensures the bottom will be crisp, and allows you to use a heavier hand with the toppings. Moreover, during the parbake, the crust will shrink every so slightly, creating a narrow gap for the cheese to wedge itself into and ultimately build into a tall, lacy cheese crust.

Bonus Tip: Invest in a Lloyd Detroit-Style Pan. While the parbake allows you to use any number of pans with success, the Lloyd pan creates a superior crust.

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The Recipe: Detroit-Style Pizza with Pickled Hot Peppers, Pepperoni and Onions

Once again, I am using Mama Lil’s pickled hot peppers here, but you can use any hot pickled pepper here you like. For the frico crust, you’ll need pre-grated cheese, the starches in which prevent the cheese from clumping and melting too quickly. And for the rest of the pizza, you’ll need good whole milk, low-moisture mozzarella. As you know, I love Calabro. You’ll also need cooked tomato sauce (large-batch recipe here, small-batch here).

Ready for the oven:

Just baked:

Frico crust:

Crumb shot:

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Any topic you’d like covered? Please let me know. See you next Friday 🍕🍕