Thick Crust Pizza Recipe - For the Ordinary Oven

Despite being over a decade when I stepped food in Italy, I still remember one of the local pizzeria that we stopped in. In that pizzeria, I had a slice of pizza that defined the gold standard for thick-crust pizza. I was frozen from a night-time wintertime walk to the diner, running on a body clock that was decidedly not dinner-time, and more than a tad grouchy after a walk in subzero temperatures. But the pizza was so astonishing, my mood did a 180 degrees turn. The pizza had a crisp base fired to a gorgeous golden brown, and crunches delightfully with every bite. It was something of a revelation. 

The restaurant cemented a special place in my heart for another reason: I gave a shock to the owner by telling him that I’d never had an espresso before. (What? It was my first night in Italy...) He was stunned, and despite being close to midnight, he made a shot of espresso for me on the house, just so I could no longer make that claim. 

The event was so memorable, so much so that when I made Kenji’s garlic focaccia recipe, the crispiness of the base brought back the memory of their formidable pizzas. And one afternoon when I finally gave it a go, it was as good as I had dreamt it would be. 

Thick Crust Pizza Recipe 
Adapted from Garlic Focaccia at Serious Eats
If you don't have a cast-iron skillet (I know I don't...), you can get great results with stainless steel. I use a 11" stainless steel baking pan, which develops a crisper crust than using non-stick pans. I usually omit the garlic butter for ease of cooking, but layering this with tomato puree as a sauce base would be rather decadent.

INGREDIENTS

Pizza Sauce

1 whole head garlic

1 tablespoon (15ml) extra-virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

80g tomato paste

Pizza Base

375g all-purpose or bread flour

11g salt

3g instant yeast

245g water 

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

STEPS

For the Pizza Sauce

Adjust oven rack to center position and preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). 

 Break a head of the garlic apart slightly. On a sheet of aluminum foil, drizzle the garlic with 1 tablespoon (15ml) olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Leave each garlic clove uncut: roasted whole garlic cloves are sweet and fragrant, which slicing into the garlic cloves, even a little, will result in a harsh and pungent garlicky taste. Wrap tightly with foil and roast for about an hour, until garlic is completely tender. Peel the roasted garlic cloves and discard the skin. Mash the garlic flesh and combine with tomato paste. Add oregano or thyme to taste.  

For the Pizza Base

In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, yeast and water until there are no pockets of dry ingredients. (The bowl should be large enough to accommodate the dough proofing, which can triple in size.)

Cover bowl with plastic wrap, then allow dough to rest at room temperature for at least 8 hours, and up to 24 hours. In a warm environment, the dough may overproof near the end of that range. Dough should rise dramatically and fill bowl. 

Add 3 tablespoons (45ml) olive oil to your stainless steel pan. Do not flour the pans. Tip your dough out of the bowl and onto the stainless steel pan, and coat the surface with the olive oil. Press the dough flat and outwards, spreading oil around the bottom and up the sides of the pan as you do so. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let dough stand at room temperature for 2 hours.

After 2 hours, the dough should be relaxed and mostly filled up to the edges of the pan. Using your fingertips, burst any large bubbles that appear. Gently lift off one edge of the dough to let air bubbles underneath escape, then repeat along the other edges until there are no more air bubbles and the dough is evenly spread around the pan.

Top with mozzarella cheese. Add other toppings of your choice, which could be raw onions, pre-cooked sliced meat, mushrooms, sliced pepperoni or sausages. (If using seafood such as prawns or squid, don't add the cooked seafood in at this stage, because it will overcook in the oven. Add the seafood in after the pizza is done.) Smear the pizza sauce over the toppings in thick stripes (As you can see from the photo above, I left a rim without toppings, which doesn't really add any benefits to the taste, and I no longer do so.) 

When ready to cook, set a tray at the lowest rack. Preheat oven to maximum temperature (which is about 210C for mine). As you put the pizza in, turn off the top heating coil (leaving only the bottom coil on.) Bake for 30-45 mins, until the bottom is browned and crisp (you can remove the pizza from the oven and inspect with a thin spatula.  If bottom is not as crisp as desired, return to oven.) Then, turn on the top coil and bake for another 5 mins, until the cheese is bubbling and browned. Remove pizza from the pan and leave it to cool slightly on a rack. This prevents steam from accumulating and softening the crust.

Protip! If using a pizza stone or pizza steel, set it on the lowest rack and preheat your oven for an hour prior to baking the pizza. Bake for 15 minutes using only the bottom coil, then for 15 minutes using both top and bottom coil.