We regularly make the deep-dish stuffed pizzas during our annual Practical Pizza Production seminars and we bake them in both deck ovens and the air impingement ovens (Lincoln and Middleby-Marshall) with good success, but again, the baking time is on the long side. Heat penetration in the air impingement ovens can be a problem if the baking times are too short. As a result, we typically bake these pizzas (12 to 14-inch sizes) at about 15 minutes or a little longer. This year we are planning to have one of the new, Lincoln Fastbake ovens to work with in the seminar so we will be able to see if the new oven technology will allow us to bake these heavy weight pizzas any faster. Because the traditional, Chicago style deep-dish pizzas have a more biscuit like (dry, tender and flaky) finished characteristic they usually take a little longer to bake properly. Remember, in Chicago, the baking times for a thin crust pizza are 25 to 30 minutes for a thin crust and about 40 minutes for a Chicago style deep-dish. Stuffed pizzas are actually somewhat different from these. The biggest problem that we encounter when fast baking the stuffed pizzas is getting a great looking external appearance, but the cheese filling in the bottom of the pizza is only luke warm. What we have found to work quite well when baking stuffed pizzas is to form the dough into a deep-dish pan, leaving surplus dough hanging over the top edge of the pan, then apply the cheese filling and some fresh basil, top this with a very thin dough sheet that is pressed down firmly on the cheese and crimped tightly to the sides of the pan so both pieces of dough adhere together, using a rolling pin or pie pin, crimp cut the dough at the top of the pan. Place into the oven to bake for 5 to 7 minutes, remove from oven and add thin slices of cheese to the top crust followed by sauce and toppings. Place back into the oven to finish baking. Its a lot of work, but it produces a great pizza similar to Edwardo’s.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor
