Deep dish pizza

[defoord]

I have a couple of questions about cooking deep dish pizzas:

1) All we can find is aluminum deep dish pans on the internet, are they OK to use in the oven...do they conduct heat too well? Thoughts?
2) General advice on cooking deep dish pizzas....cooking temperature, time it takes, layering of the pizza, cook the crust first then add toppings??? Generally, how do you do it.

Thanks for the help!

Doug

[JoeyVelderrain]

i am interested in seeing what replies you get, deep dish has always been my favorite type of pizza.

[texassourdough]

It is hard to think of a reason that doing deep dish pizza in a WFO has any benefit. You will want an oven temp of around 500 which means you won't want a fire in the oven and you will need an oven door to keep in the heat. While you might be able to have a small fire and do it with an open door, it will be tricky to keep the oven temp reasonable and to get uniform, quality results. If you try it with a hot oven you will burn the outside long before the inside is anywhere near done. Baking time at 500 will probably be about 40-45 minutes.

I personally don't like to use aluminum in the oven but it isn't a big deal - especially at 500 degrees. I prefer cast iron and enameled cast iron. Steel is okay for this.

Find an on-line recipe you like and follow its guidelines for assembly/baking.

Good Luck!

[defoord]

Thank you for your insight texassourdough!!

[texassourdough]

If you want to find out how impossible it is to do deep dish pizza in a hot WFO, try making some NY pizza dough/thick crust style and try to bake it at 750 or so with a good fire. You will get burned top, probably a burned bottom, and raw dough. I did it "for curiosity" once and had to really chill the oven down to make it work (about 600 hearth/800 dome). Never repeated!
Jay

[splatgirl]

two words: CAST IRON. As Jay said, deep dish is not really a WFO kind of thing, but in the indoor oven, heck yea.
I generously oil my cast iron skillet and use a dough with a lower hydration than I would for WFO pizza. The dough gets kinda fried and crispy on the outside and it's super duper tasty. Totally different than neo-style, but so, so good. Our favorite is spinach/mushroom plus or minus Italian sausage. Just talking about it makes me want to go make one!

[tfasz]

Splatgirl nailed it - cast iron pans are perfect for deep dish. Haven't tried it in the WFO yet as I would be a bit concerned about the temp being too high. Maybe after the fire has died down a bit and the oven is back around 500 degrees?

I usually put a couple tablespoons of olive oil in the pan, then add the dough and let it rise for an hour or two. Then I put the sauce on and throw it into the oven at 450-500 degrees for 10 minutes. Pull it out and put toppings and cheese on and back into the oven for 15-20 minutes.

[defoord]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I think I'll be trying it inside....very helpful info!