It is the third Saturday in April. It is not a Sunday, but I’m booked tomorrow to help Eric rummage through his shed full of vintage computers. I’ve also been told some soldering will be involved. The two week break ended up being four and I was really itching to make a pizza today. I asked Niles if he was free today instead and he was. A day early but pizza day is on!

Mike came down to visit Ken recently and brought along this special gift:

A block of brick cheese. Or maybe it’s better to say it is a brick of brick cheese. With this cheese on hand, it made the agenda obvious for today. Time to make another Detroit style pizza but with the “official” cheese.

I started the dough about ten minutes to noon. My last notes for a two pizza recipe had 460 g of flour plus two small spoonfuls. I measured that out, added the two spoonfuls, and that ended up being 500 g when rounded. With 340 g of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, and some fast acting yeast, I combined them all and put it in the mixer for eight minutes. No adjustments needed this time. The dough came out looking great:

I think it is time to write this down as the final recipe. It went into the bowl looking like this:

After an hour it looked like this:

Niles and Little T showed up a little after 1pm and Niles brought along a special present for me. A frozen-partial-bake Ponzetti’s pizza. A large one, at that, cut into two. I have to resist the temptation to have that for breakfast tomorrow.

I cut off a chunk of the brick cheese and used the shredder attachment on the mixer:

Little T had only been here for five minutes and he was already getting impatient. He asked to try some of the cheese as-is, so we cut off a small chunk and he really liked it. He even asked for another one.

The dough ended up being 840 g, so I split them into two 420 g pieces. Cue the 420 jokes. I put the first one in the pan but it was being a bit stubborn. I covered it to let it rest for another 20 minutes or so. Niles and I spent the time talking about the pizza sauce pump that Grotto uses to make their swirl. And then we complained about conveyor belt pizza.

At this point I was able to stretch it out like this:

I found out that it is important at this stage to make sure that the thickness is uniform throughout. I didn’t try that hard this time and the pizza ended up being a little lopsided. Thick on one side but a little thin on the other.

A simple brick cheese pizza for this one. All dressed up and ready to go:

I think I need to go back to making the stripes instead of the random dollops. Random dollops taste good but it doesn’t have that same presentation. I didn’t have time to make a sauce today so we used a jar of Ledo sauce. A nice mix of Michigan and Maryland. Four minutes on the stove top and then about twelve minutes in the oven and we have this:

Now for some side crust footage:

And the underbelly was cooked quite well:

The brick cheese has a very distinctive aroma when baking and a distinctive taste too. It is kind of hard to describe it except to say that it is different. I wouldn’t say it is superior or inferior to other cheeses that are used for pizza but it is a great option. I am glad that I was able to have the opportunity to try the real deal so that I can now identify who the imposters are. I’m looking at you Pizza Hut.

Only one pizza today. We weren’t terribly hungry and I need to work off the fifteen pandemic pounds I’ve gained. We have plenty of flour in reserve tough. Apparently our bread flour stash is stored on top of the drying machine.