Detroit-style pizza at home

RECIPE

To get the right dough thickness, I think you want to start with 1 cup (237mL) of water per 110 square inches (279 cm) of pan area. My pan is 165 sq in, so I started with 1.5 cups of water, which is the recipe you see below. Adjust all other quantities accordingly.

• 1.5 cups (355mL) water
• 1.5 teaspoons yeast
• 1.5 teaspoons coarse salt
• bread flour (I don't measure it, but I probably used about 500g, 4 cups)
• 1 cup (237mL) canned crushed or pureed tomatoes (they use Stanislaus brand at Buddy's)
• 7 oz (200g) Wisconsin brick cheese (instead you could use mild cheddar or low-moisture mozzarella or both)
• 2 ounces (57g) sliced pepperoni
• olive oil
• herbs and spices for the sauce (I used oregano, thyme, garlic powder and black pepper)

Combine the water with the yeast, salt, and as much bread flour as you can stir in with a spoon. Cover and let autolyse for 20 minutes. Knead in some more flour until you have a stretchy dough that's still pretty sticky. Cover and let rise until doubled, about two hours.

While you're waiting you can prep the cheese by cutting it into chunks — chunks will melt slower than shreds, and we want to slow the melting. Keep the cut cheese in the freezer, for the same reason. You can also mix the canned tomatoes with some herbs and spices, maybe a little olive oil and a little water if it looks too thick to spread. If your pepperoni slices are very wide, maybe cut them into quarters.

Prep your pan by coating the interior surface with a film of olive oil. A well-seasoned blue steel Detroit-style pizza pan would be traditional, but an aluminum cake pan or sheet pan would do ok instead.

When the dough is risen, transfer it to the oiled pan and stretch it out to fill the pan as well as you can. Cover and let it proof and relax for about a half hour. This would be a good time to get your oven heating as hot as it will go, convection if you have it. After the dough has proofed, you should be able to stretch it into the corners of the pan, if you weren't able to before.

Top the pizza with the pepperoni first, then the cheese, and then lay on the sauce in a few narrow stripes on top. Bake until it's as brown as possible but before the cheese squeezes out a ton of grease. Mine took about 15 minutes. Run a spatula around the edge to release the pizza from the pan before sliding it out to a board and slicing.