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Detroit-style Pizza
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Detroit-style Pizza

A Detroit favorite, this pan-baked pizza is versatile, easy to make and delicious.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian-American
Servings 4 to 6

Ingredients

  • 2-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup lukewarm water
  • olive oil
  • 1/4 pound of sausage, browned and drained
  • 6 – 8 ounces mozzarella and sharp or extra sharp cheddar cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 6 – 8 ounces sharp or extra sharp cheddar cut into 1/2-inch cubes
  • 3 cups of tomato sauce

Instructions

  • Make the dough. Mix the flour, yeast, salt and water in a medium bowl with your hands until a shaggy dough forms. Cover it for 10 minutes. Then knead until it is smooth and elastic—probably about 2 minutes. Coat a bowl with olive oil, put in the dough and swoosh it around, then cover it and let it sit in a warm place for two hours.
  • Lightly oil a 9x13-inch cake pan (or a black-anodized Detroit pizza pan). Put the dough in the pan and, working gently, push and press it around with your fingertips so it fills the bottom of the pan. If the dough is not willing to stretch right away, let it rest for a few minutes and then have at it again, repeating until the dough fills the bottom of the pan evenly. Don’t bother to build up a rim; the dough should be uniformly flat. Once that is complete, let it rest for half an hour.
  • Gently heat the sauce. You want a thickish sauce. We used some leftover marinara and added in some freshly roasted cherry tomatoes. Use the sauce you have on hand, including store-bought pasta or pizza sauce.
  • Preheat the oven to 500ºF and place a rack in the lowest position.
  • Assemble the pizza. First, scatter the sausage uniformly across the dough. Then add in the cheese cubes. Be sure they go right up to the edges. Don’t hold back.
  • Add the sauce. Traditionally, spoon the sauce on in three long lines up the length of the pizza; or you can dollop it all over.
  • And finally, bake it. Slide the pan into the oven. Bake it 12 to 16 minutes. You want the cheese edges to be very, very dark, almost black. Remove it from the oven and set it on a rack. Run a knife or spatula around the edges right away and then let it sit for maybe 5 minutes to set up. Some recipes tell you to remove the whole thing from the pan and then serve it. We just cut it and serve it straight out of the pan.

Kitchen Notes

Reheating the leftover pizza. There are a couple of approaches to reheating leftovers. You can heat it in a 350ºF oven for 10 minutes or so, on a Silpat- or parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Or you can nuke it for 45 seconds; meanwhile, heat a lidded skillet with a little olive oil over medium-high heat. Add in the pizza pieces, put the lid back, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 3 to 5 minutes. We prefer the latter approach for this type of pizza. It makes the bottom slightly crispy—a nice extra with the already deliciously browned, crispy cheesy edges.