It is the fourth Sunday of October. It’s time again to try some pan pizza. I used to love the pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I’m talking about the pizza they served back in the day and not whatever they are selling now. To be honest, I haven’t eaten Pizza Hut in five years since my last disappointment. My opinions on the subject are now that old and may not reflect what you can buy today. It has been long enough that I might have to give them another try.

The old pan pizza had a magical quality that made it so special. I think it was a combination of the charred crust bits and the oily belly. Nobody has this anymore around here with the exception of BJ’s Restaurant. Theirs is good when done well but they can hit or miss.

I’ve made two pan pizzas previously and that was more than a year ago. I have notes from the first one saying that the bottom got overcooked and was too crunchy. I don’t have notes from the second one but I remember that one being too bready and way too thick. My notes did have the source of the dough recipe and I notice this time that it credited as a slight modification of the one provided by J. Kenji López-Alt. I went with the original source this time with no changes.

Niles and the kid were coming over so I prepared the pan dough recipe for two pizzas along with the standard NY style recipe for an additional three pizzas. The pan pizza dough is quite sticky once it comes together:

This following photo is how it looked before covering up for the evening. Now that I’m looking at it, I probably should have mixed it a little more thoroughly.

After sitting out overnight, covered, on the counter top, it puffed up to this size:

There are some dry spots in there but it turned out to be fine. The no-knead dough is very fluffy and soft compared to the NY style:

I placed the dough into an oiled cast iron pan and stretched it out a bit by pressing with my fingertips:

It then sat covered for two hours. I then stretched it out even more to cover the entire pan:

I put on 100 g of mozzarella to start but it didn’t look like enough. I added 20 g more and then put on the Mama Mary’s pepperoni:

My previous notes said I first placed the pan on the stove top for 5 minutes before placing the pan in the oven for 10 minutes. I followed that again but the pizza looked done after 9 minutes in the over so I pulled it out a bit early:

I also had in my notes to let it sit for 5 minutes. In both of my previous bakes, I did not follow that note and ended up burning myself with the hot oil or with the hot pizza. I set a timer this time to enforce the cool down.

I used a knife to separate the edge from the pan and then with a spatula, the pizza slid right out.

The crust came out pretty good and it had that classic pan pizza taste to it:

Always check the under belly to make sure it looks good before removing it from the pan:

It can always be placed back on the stove top to cook the crust more if necessary.

This attempt was a success. Niles attended the first attempt last year and agreed that this one was so much better. Even Terri liked it too. She still doesn’t like the taste of the sauce and they both said that the pizza could use a bit more cheese. I really liked the pepperoni. It has some zing so be careful with the crushed red pepper.

Time to move on to the NY style pizza. We decided to increase the cheese a bit and went with 140 g of mozzarella:

Again there is more blistering than normal and I do think this is because there was more cheese this time. The extra cheese didn’t seem to help and the pizza just tasted flat compared to the pan pizza. Straight mozzarella with nothing else going on is just a boring pizza.

That pan pizza is hearty so we were full after two. We made a carry out order for Mirah which is always with onion:

Which leaves one pan pizza dough and one NY dough left over. I placed both in plastic containers and will use them for some meals this week.