It is the third Sunday of January. Snow is starting to fall outside and the weather is expected to get nasty with some freezing rain on the way. A great day to stay inside and make some pizza.

A couple of months ago our toaster oven broke. I was toasting up some English Muffins when a small supernova exploded inside. I have no clue what happened but the heating element got really bright at one spot, warped the rod, and then burned out never to heat up again.

The toaster oven is the kitchen appliance that gets the most use so I wanted to find a nice replacement for this one. As I went shopping, I found out that most toaster ovens these days come with an air fryer feature. Terri already bought an air fryer for the kitchen so we didn’t need one built into the toaster oven too. The only decent one that I found without the air fryer was this Breville:

It is expensive but if it lasts for five years under every day use it will be worth it. I’m by myself today. So, how about trying a Detroit style pizza in the toaster oven?

I started making the dough at noon for an expected 1pm lunch time. I searched back through my notes for the updated dough recipe and used those for today: 460 g of bread flour and 340 g of water. This is how the dough was looking right when it came together in the mixer:

After kneading for eight minutes, it looked like this:

This was a lot more manageable than dough made with the original recipe. The dough was still a bit sticky and fluid but it could be handled without half the dough sticking to your fingers. I pulled it out, shaped it into a ball, oiled it up, and covered it for thirty minutes.

I went shopping at Harris Teeter this time and saw that mozzarella cheese was available in this small block form which seemed the perfect size:

I cut that in half, shredded one, and saved the other for later. Santa must have been reading this blog because I now have a brand new shredding attachment:

Half of the block shredded yielded what appeared to be a good amount for a single pizza:

After the dough rested for thirty minutes, I divided them into two balls. One for the freezer and one for the pan. I pushed out the dough a bit and then covered it for ten minutes:

After ten minutes, I was able to stretch it out quite far but not all the way yet.

I covered it for another ten minutes and now it was ready:

I dumped all the cheese onto the dough and it did look to be a good amount:

I set the toaster oven to the “Bake” feature with a temperature of 450°F and set the timer to fifteen minutes. I also turned on the convection fan and moved the rack to the lower position.

While that was preheating, I spooned out some Ledo’s pizza sauce into three stripes. I also added some pepperoni, sliced onions, and black olives because that was the mood that I was in. The only thing left to do is wait for the oven to be ready:

I flipped the pizza around at the halfway mark. I used quite a bit of olive oil in the pan but I think this time it was a bit too much. Later in the bake the oil started to aggressively boil to the point where it would occasionally splatter and get vaporized by the heating element. When the timer expired, the cheese was almost done but it wasn’t there yet. I moved the rack to the center position and broiled for two more minutes. It came out looking like this:

The sides got crispy but didn’t have the legendary char on the side:

The dough was cooked all the way through and the bottom was golden brown but spongy instead of crispy. Over all, the pizza tasted great. I cut it into six slices and was only able to eat four. This would be a perfect pizza for two people when served with a small side. This is worth trying again and this time with a bit less oil.