Detroit Style Pan Pizza

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Detroit-style pan pizza has the fluffiest, crispiest dough, and it's loaded with sauce and cheese. It's one of my favorite styles of pizza, and you don't have to travel to Detroit to get it because it's super easy to make at home!

Prep Time1

Cook Time15

Resting time1

Total Time2 15

Course: Entree

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Author: Julie Maestre

Equipment

9x13 baking pan

Ingredients

Pizza Dough

2 ¼ cups bread flour
1 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup warm water not hotter than 115F
Olive oil to grease pan and bowl

Pizza Sauce

1 tablespoon 30ml olive oil
3 cloves garlic finely minced
2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning
28 oz can crushed tomatoes I also tried canned whole tomatoes and pureed them with hand blender. It worked but the crushed tomatoes were better.
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon sugar or to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Pizza Toppings

7 oz Cup and char pepperoni divided
10 oz mozzarella cheese
3 oz provolone
Fresh basil and red pepper flakes, optional

Instructions

How to make the dough:

In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer add in the flour, instant yeast, and kosher salt. Mix with a spoon, then add in the warm water. Use the spoon to mix the water in to form a shaggy dough (about 30 seconds of mixing with the spoon). Now, using the dough hook attachment turn mixer on medium speed and mix for 5 minutes (on my KitchenAid Mixer I used level 4 speed). You will have a smooth elastic and moist dough. Remove the dough hook and place the dough in a clean bowl which has been lightly greased with olive oil. (The dough is quite sticky, so moisten your hands with water to prevent it from sticking).
Let the dough rise in a warm place for 30 minutes or until it has doubled in size. If you don’t have all this equipment, cover your bowl of dough with plastic wrap and leave it in a warm place to rise until it has doubled, it will take longer than 30 minutes depending on how warm it is.
Once the dough has doubled, add about 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the bottom of a dark empty 9x13 metal cake pan or Detroit pizza pan if you have one.
Place the dough in the pan. Use your fingers to gently dimple and stretch the dough towards the edges. Do not force it to the point of tearing. The dough will not be able to reach the edges on the first stretch, this is normal. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and set aside to rest allowing the gluten strands to relax a bit before stretching again.
After about 15 minutes of resting, try to stretch the dough to the edges again. I only needed this one 15 minute rest, but if your dough still won’t reach the edges, let it rest again for another 15 minutes then continue stretching. Once fully stretched to the edges cover with plastic wrap and set it aside to allow it one final rest, while you make the pizza sauce.

How to make the sauce:

Heat a medium/large saucepan over the stovetop set to medium/high heat. Once hot, add in the olive oil and then the fresh garlic and Italian seasoning. Sauté for about 30 seconds or until it becomes fragrant.
Add in the crushed tomatoes, sugar, garlic and onion powder. Stir and bring to a simmer. Allow the sauce to simmer uncovered for about 15 minutes with occasional stirring. While the sauce is reducing, preheat the oven to 500F and make sure the rack is at the lowest level. If you have pizza stone you can place it on the bottom rack.

Assembling the pizza (use ½ the sauce made in this recipe)

Add some of the cheese cubes around the perimeter touching the edges of the pan.
Place about ½ of the pepperoni evenly down on the dough.
Add the rest of the cheese cubes so they are evenly dispersed all over the pizza.
Use a large spoon to spread the pizza sauce in three evenly spaced strips along the length of the pizza, one down the middle and one on each side.
Add the rest of the pepperoni to the top of the pizza.
Place the pan pizza onto the lowest rack and bake for 12-15 minutes. The edges should be dark and crispy, the cheese in the middle melty, and the pepperoni should be cupped.
Remove from the oven and allow it to rest for a minute or two before cutting and serving.

Notes

Reducing the pizza sauce is important as it removes some of the water content. If the sauce is really wet, you could end up with a soggy pizza. You can also ladle the sauce over the pizza once it comes out of the oven.

Add the cheese before the sauce so the dough doesn’t get wet and soggy. Adding the cheese first helps the crust turn out crispier.

Add plenty of olive oil to the pan so the bottom gets crispy. Put extra cheese around the edges too, so it gets crispy and buttery when it melts. Detroit-style pizza is supposed to have a crispy crust, and the cheese helps make that happen.

Use a 9x13 metal cake pan or Detroit pizza pan if you have one. The darker the pan, the better the heat transfer and the crispier/darker the bottom and edges of your pizza will be.

Nutrition