Detroit Style Pizza

Detroit style pizza may have originally been made in the humble, blue-collar, auto-worker’s pan, but today it’s enjoyed throughout the world. With its light, bready base and crisp, golden, all-corners crust, this pie is made to make your tastebuds dance. It’s not exactly a quick, throw-together midweek meal, but when you have the time to make it properly, it’s worth every minute. Without further ado, pizzaiolos of all ages, we give you: the ‘Gimme mo’ Motown Munch Monster, the Detroit Style Pizza. 

Recipe Essentials

Ingredients

Instructions

Make The Dough

1 Pour the water into a large mixing bowl. Add semolina flour, sugar, and yeast. Using a fork, stir the mixture vigorously for 1 minute. Let the mixture sit for 15 minutes to allow the yeast to activate (you should see some small bubbles start to form). Add the bread flour, then the salt. Using the dough hook attachment of your stand mixer, combine these ingredients at the lowest speed for 1 minute.

2 Scrape down the bowl to ensure that there is no flour left clinging to the bowl. Mix the dough for a further 4 minutes at a medium speed. When ready, your dough will look smooth and silky and feel elastic and sticky.

3 Scrape the dough off the dough hook, remove it from the mixing bowl, and using a bench-scraper, separate it into two 18oz (500g) portions (you can get one pizza from each portion).

4 Put a tablespoon of olive oil into each of the smaller mixing bowls, and put a bit of the oil onto your fingers. Work the portions of dough into dough balls and place them into the oiled bowls. Coat one side of each ball with the oil in the bowls, flip them upside-down and plop them back into the bowls. Cover the bowls with cling wrap, and leave the dough to rest at room temperature for 20 minutes.

5 Generously oil your Detroit style pizza pan using some paper towel. Make sure you coat the sides. Put some more oil on your fingers, stretch one portion of the dough into a rectangle, about the length of your pizza pan, and press it in. Press down firmly on the dough 8-10 times. Cover the pan, and let the dough rest for 15 minutes.

6 Using your fingers, put some oil onto the top of the dough, stretch out the corners, and gently push the dough into the pan. Make sure to get the dough into the corners. Cover the pan again and let the dough rise for 2 hours.

Place The Toppings

1 Cover the base completely with rows and columns of pepperoni.

2 Evenly sprinkle the cheese on top of the pepperoni. Make sure to get it all the way to the edges for that golden crust.

3 Preheat the oven to 500°F (260°C) or as close to that as your oven will go.

Simmer The Sauce

1 Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan. Cover the saucepan and cook at a low heat for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Remove the lid and let the sauce simmer until the oven reaches the desired temperature. That’s it!

Bake The Pie

1 Ladle the sauce onto the pizza in three horizontal stripes.

2 Place the pizza pan into the oven on the middle rack.

3 Cook the pizza for 15-20 minutes or until the crust is golden and bubbly.

4 Take the pizza out of the oven and slide a spatula around the edges. Remove the pizza from the pan. Enjoy!

Tips & Tricks

• If you don’t have a stand mixer, your fingers and hands will work just as well to combine and mix the dough.
• Never use flour on the worktop, your hands, or in the bowls — only olive oil. For this recipe, using flour will throw off the balance of water in the dough. This dough needs to be quite wet (and therefore sticky) to get that light, chewy consistency in your base.
• The dough needs to rest between the time that you put it in the pan and when you stretch it to the corners. Without a rest, it becomes stubborn (kinda like a toddler).
• The original Detroit Style Pizza uses Wisconsin brick cheese, but because this can be difficult to get hold of, we’ve used the cheddar-mozz combo (which actually works great for most pizzas).

Did you make this recipe? Tag us on social media @chefpomodoro so that we can share in your delight!