New York Pizza: the Iconic Slice, with Wylie Dufresne

Red making made simple. It's a snack. Yeah, it's gonna say, how many pizzas do you need? You need to lose one per person. [laughter]

Done. [laughter] From King Arthur Bacon Company, this is Things Bakers. Now, I'm David Tornkin. King Arthur's medical director.

And I'm Jessica Battle on a staff editor at King Arthur, which I'm talking about something fun today. Today we're talking about pizza. The King of Pizza. Or should I say "peans"?

Oh, I see what you did there. Yeah, because it is New York Style Pizza. Yes, Jessica is holding up the copy. For those of you not watching on YouTube or Spotify. You should be.

First of all, second of all,

what you're not seeing is Jessica holding up a copy of our brand new sparkling cookbook, the book of pizza, and she's holding it up to the classic cheese slice in the New York Pizza chapter of that book. And today we're just talking about that slice, basically. We're just talking about New York Pizza.

Because, I mean, there's so many different things you can talk about when you talk about pizza. But I felt like it was worth devoting an entire episode to New York Pizza, because it's such a significant style.

“And I think it's the pizza that people think of when they think of pizza.”

And I think your point is a lot of people, whether you live in New York or not, have an allegiance to New York Style Pizza. Or maybe not an allegiance, but appreciation. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I even think like, you know, I know that now pizza chains deliver all sorts of styles of pizza.

But I feel like a lot of those chains are sort of rooted in a New Yorkish New York esque style of pizza. Yeah. You know, I'm sure they make other ones too. Yeah, there's this stuff across whatever, but I do feel like at their core,

they are like pulling on a thread that connects to New York Pizza. I think you're actually really onto something, because when I was researching New York Style Pizza for this episode, and I guess I did it when we wrote the book. It was sort of fascinating to see that New York Pizza was not just,

it was actually the first American pizza, the first New York pizza,

which was 1907, if I'm not mistaken. Good year. Lombardy's in New York was the first P3 in America. So New York Style Pizza was sort of American Style Pizza. So let's thinkrest 14 inches approximately.

Yes. Let's talk about the sauce to make sauce. So this is interesting, because later in this episode, I'm talking to Wiley Differne, who is a great chef, and has a pizza to shop a few pizza shops now in New York.

And he's really doing what he calls third wave, New York Pizza. And we had a disagreement over what the sauce entails.

“But I believe in what we say in the book is,”

New York Pizza Sauce has a little bit of sweetness to it. It has a little bit of sugar. So in the book, one of the first sauces we talk about is a no-cook pizza sauce. Yeah.

Super easy to make, and we have a little variation, which is just like, throughout a teaspoon of sugar, and then bam, you've got New York Style. Yeah. So I do think there is, there's truth to that.

There's a little bit of sweet, but, you know, Wiley's point, as Wowl here, is that sweetness can come from different places. You know, it could come from the tomatoes, if you're super, um, specific, and intense about where you feel. Yeah.

So we're just grabbing them off this top of the grocery store. I think a little sugar is nice to have.

And then the cheese, always low moisture,

shredded mozzarella. Coal milk. Coal milk. Coal milk mozzarella. Yeah.

You get the, even blanket of cheese. I love that sound of that. Yeah. Those tuck me in. I know.

Well, and particularly, because we're recording this on a very cold day. Yeah. Yeah. So tuck me under an even blanket of cheese. I would love to get her blanket of cheese right now.

“But I think what is one of the, you know,”

is the most interesting and most distinctive features of New York Pizza is that often it's not sold as a whole pie. It is sold by the slice. Yes. And I think that this is the thing.

This is the thing. Really sort of crossed me over from, you know, allegiance to the pizza of my youth to being in New York style. Yeah. Yeah.

Pizza queen. That's what I'm going to call myself. Yeah. It's the slice. And it's just nourishing.

And it's not a full meal to me. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can get two slices and a drink.

And that's a kind of a classic order. I wanted to get one slice. To me, it's a snack, it's something to carry me through the day. It was a little treat. Yeah.

And it does just change my mood. It changed. I just feel like it's just, I feel like I'm so happy now. It makes you get everything bad and makes you remember everything good. And it's, and it's usually there for you.

you can find a slice of pizza and I'll be honest. It's not always good. There are bad slice of pizza in New York. Sure. But they're usually somewhat cheap.

That's not cheap as they used to be. Yeah. Yeah.

And they're always hot always.

Yes.

“I mean, and I love, I think you see, there's a culture of like, you know, kids getting at a school.”

Like, they were talking about like a sort of like snack culture of pizza. Yeah. It's like an after school snack, like being able to get a slice on your way home. Because like the slice shops in New York are ubiquitous. Like, you know.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we talked about the size of a whole, you know, a whole pizza. But the slice is, you know, it's like an oversized slice. Like, if you get a whole pizza at home, you know, it's traditionally going to be cut in eight slices.

Like, maybe in New York, it's four. Maybe it's six. Like, they're big slices. Well, I think they're making them, I think at the slice up. So making them really big and getting a ten slices out of your right.

They're huge. They should not fit on a paper plate. If it's not spilling over the paper plate, that you're sharing that on the slice up and you're at the wrong slice up. And you mentioned something that I think is really kind of like,

like, key about getting pizza from a slice shop,

which is like, you're saying it's really hot.

And it's really crisp. Yes. And that is because of a, I mean, I was going to say a special thing, but I don't know if it's special. But they do something.

Yeah. It's only reading. You'll never get it. You'll never get it. Yes.

It's called a twice bake. Not a twice bake. But that's essentially what it is. Yeah. And you go in.

You see your pizza sitting out there, room temperature. And you order. They take the slice out. They throw it in a deck up. And like a blazing hot deck up.

And for, you know, a couple minutes. And then they handed two so it's like revitalized. It's revitalized. The cheese is melting. The crisp.

The undercarriage is crisp.

And you can hold it up. Yes. And if it's, if it's done right, there will be no dip tip, which we've talked about on the show before.

But no dip tip. Hold the slice from the crust and tip. And it should sort of like, stay somewhat straight. Like it shouldn't flop over.

Right. And that's particularly impressive when it's an oversized slice. Yes. Like it's one thing to get a slice. It's, you know, four inches long to,

to, you know, hold the ship. But when you have one that's eight inches long six, you know, whatever. Like to stay crisp from edge to edge is,

“I mean, and I also think that's what makes them so good.”

You have like that hot melty cheese. And the really crunchy crust. Yeah. And there's usually like a little bit of, you know, we did a lot of pizza.

Testing, tasting, you know, we went to all of the New York slice shops of note and tried slices when we were working on the pizza book. You know, and we noticed, like, in the good places. And I think this is what separates like,

I was gonna say the men from the boys. I think it's not just turn of phrase. But what really separates. Try to give it all right now, but I can't think of it. Yeah, what separates like an average slice shop.

The current from the way. What's up with the current from the way? Uh, is the crust. Yeah. Like a sub par slice shop is gonna have a crust that doesn't

really taste like anything else. It's a vehicle, right? It's like a vehicle for salty cheese and sauce. But the good slice shops, even if it's thin crust, like you'll know that the crust has some flavor.

It comes from fermentation. Right, right. And I do think that's another element sort of key element of a New York style pizza. The crust has some age on it.

Yeah. It's been usually, has a cold retard for at least 24 hours. Meaning, you know, it's fermented in the fridge overnight. You know, usually bald and refrigerated and then shaped the next day into the pies.

And sometimes much longer, but that, you know, fermentation period is what's given at that flavor, and if you doesn't have it, which you can tell, which is a trick for I learned from Martin going from New York. The slice shops we're going to have Martin on later in the show.

You can tell by ripping in that crust open and sticking your nose

“into it and smell, you know, like, what is it smell like?”

Like, kind of sweetened. You see, that's, that's a good thing. Some New York slices now smell like sourdough. They much more pungent because they're, you know, aging and fermenting and using natural.

They're using sourdough and sourdough culture. But that's not traditional. I mean, traditional New York pizza dough is yeast it. Yeah, I think the, I think the, yes, the most traditional route is yeasted and a little bit of sugar in the dough too.

I mean, so just a little bit. I mean, we're not saying that New York stuff pizza is sweet, but it has, it's, especially kind of a little bit. Well, and you know, we've talked in other episodes in this podcast about sugar and having a, like, sugar has a functional aspect, right?

And in pizza dough, it helps with that browning. Yeah. And I think that's like, you know, where some pizza styles, you see, like, more even, uneven browning or the sort of leoparding that people are trying to get, you know, in the Neapods and pizza, but in New York pizza, you just want,

like, a brown crust. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's like a golden, a golden brown.

We are also have Martin Philip, the co-author of the book of pizza, joining us later to talk about sort of some of the tactical,

“like, how can you make New York style piece at home?”

Yeah, spoiler. Yes. And we're going to talk about how to do that. Yeah. So let's start with quietly.

And then we'll get into Martin.

Finally to frame, thank you for coming on things.

Pickers, no, it's so exciting to have you here. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I don't know how much I know as, or if I'm even a baker, but I'm excited to be here nonetheless.

You're making some of the best pizza in New York in my opinion. I love eating at stretch pizza, yeah. When you were developing the pizza, especially when you decided to start selling it to the public, did you intend to make a New York style pizza?

Is that what you consider your pizza?

Well, when I was making pizza during quarantine,

I had no, I was able to go out and eat other pizza to compare it to. So all I could use was my previous life experience as a child growing up in New York. I ate New York style pizza. And so while I only had an oven that would make roughly a 12 inch pie, I thought to myself, I'm going to try to make.

I'm going to make teach myself how to make New York style pizza in miniature. And then as I began to make it more and more and more, I began to think, wait a minute, this is actually, I imagine that the smaller you make it pizza, the better it holds up to delivery and other things being in a box.

So the idea of a restaurant with 12 inch style New York pizza was born. And now we do slices and we have slice shops as well. And so we've, we've expanded our repertoire. But it started, it started like that because I had no other, I had no other memories. I didn't, I didn't grow up eating the apartment pizza.

So I had to, I had to, I had to judge the quality of my pizza based on the pizza as a child. I love that you brought up the size of pizza because that's definitely one element of what makes, or of what we think of when we think of New York pizza is the big size of it. But you've made it smaller, but you've, you know, kept elements to the pizza that make it a New York style pizza. What are those elements? What's you are the elements that make it in New York style pizza even though it's smaller?

“I think that it's important to know that pizza is very personal.”

And so I think there are a lot of different people making very good New York style pizza that will say, "We'll have a different opinion." So this is what I think of when I think of New York pizza. And I think of crispy, crunchy, and chewy. And by that, I mean crispy on the bottom, like a nice crispy undercarriage. So it seems to be a word that's become part of the common vernacular, the bottom of the pizza.

For me, crunchy is that layer between the bottom and the toppings, which for me is a little bit more substantial. There are plenty of people that love paper thin New York style pizza. For me, I like it when it's a little bit thicker down the middle so that when you do bite through the toppings and before you get to the crust, you have this crunch.

There's all this little airy pockets that you bite through and you can feel it. And you, you often will get a very clean bite because you're going through more substrate than a thin crust pizza. And then the chew is often what you get to when you get to the end, the crust or the handle, that bit at the end, it has a little bit of tug and a little bit of chew. So for me, a great New York slice is crispy, crunchy, and chewy.

“And I think the crunch part is for me kind of where it's most important because that's where you really have the opportunity to taste the dough.”

Your crust has a lot of flavor in it. You're doing that a couple of different ways. New York pizza traditionally is an aged dough, it's aged overnight. Are you doing that? And I know you're also introduced a b-get to your dough, right?

Which is adding lots of flavor. Yeah, we start with a pre-fermented and our pre-fermented choice is a b-get. And I think whether or not that's actually traditionally the answer is no, it probably wasn't originally part of New York style pizza. But as we've seen everything from a b-get to a poolish, to a lavain, to a sourdough, to combinations of all those things work its way into sort of this newer wave of pizza. And then we go ahead, you know, when we make our dough the next day, our b-get takes about 16 hours to ripen.

And then when then we go ahead and mix our dough. And then we let that we've all our dough and let it cold ferment for, we really like like three days. Oh, wow, that fermentation, we like that a lot, we like the texture of the dough, we like the way the dough's had some time to relax.

But we've also been experimenting a lot with, you know, I think if you ask any baker, what is the most single most important thing about about making bread in the answer is temperature.

We're always we're trying to optimize fermentation, right?

So fermentation and proofing is part of the fermentation process, I think, technically, you know, as a dough comes out of some sort of semi dormant state into a pre-baked pre-skinned state, it's still continuing to ferment, particularly as the temperature warms up. But we're trying to control all that so that we get that dough when it's sort of at its optimal temperature for all of it so that the yeast, everything's alive. And, you know, when you skin that pie out and you lay down on the peel and you just see this entire circle of tiny, tiny bubbles all the way around, you know that that thing's just going to go on the oven and it's going to spring and everything's, you know, going to be okay in the world for at least eight minutes.

“I think of the traditional New York Slice Shop tomato sauce as being a little sweet.”

What is your style, do you, do you like that or do you like a little sugary in your sauce or and how much did you play with the sauce before opening? The sauce we messed around with quite a bit at the beginning and we haven't really changed it much sense. If anything, it's been about trying different tomatoes and seeing which tomato we like, but but in terms of what's in the sauce, there is no sugar in our sauce. We, we use a, you know, California tomato, Stanislav 711, which we really like, they have a nice sweetness, a little bit of acidity.

Our sauce is not cooked because we found that man cooked it and it reduced even a little bit, it became too sweet. So this tomato is, has got some inherent sweetness as well as some acidity.

“And we blend that with garlic, oregano, olive oil, salt, and soy sauce. We put soy sauce on our pizza because I think that there's no real reason not to because it gives you that nice umami punch.”

That's a good amazing tip and is it a little splacer you go heavy with it.

So it's a splash. Like, these are things that you don't want to taste. Yeah, you would not eat our sauce and go ahaha. I pick up the soy sauce, but hopefully you're eating it and you're feeling that it's got a richness, it's got a deliciousness, it's got, you know, some of those layers that things like soy sauce can bring that umami. That's why everybody likes pizza because it's delicious and why is it delicious? Because it's just like layer after layer after layer of umami, the dough is fermented umami. The sauce tomatoes inherently have umami rich oftentimes anchos umami mushrooms umami.

Jesus, Parmesan umami. It's like boom boom boom boom boom and then you eat it. Oh my god, I want to eat more and I want to eat more. It's like, you know, like, we joke around like, you know, who doesn't like pizza. I'm sorry, you wouldn't let that person watch your child if they don't like pizza. They're untrustworthy. Some of it doesn't like pizza because there's a pizza for everyone. It's like saying they don't like ice cream and like what you ask you don't like poppies to or something. I don't know, it makes you seem suspect if you don't like pizza because there's an inherent deliciousness to pizza.

That we are almost wired as human beings to find delicious. There are elements of that that we almost can't argue with biologically and that's really interesting. We talked about dough. We've talked about sauce. I wanted to before we end our conversation. I wanted to make sure we talk about cheese.

What is your approach to the cheese that you're taking on your pizzas? Well, we are cheese first.

So we're cheese first on our pies. Many of our pies are slice. We get in bricks of of Grande, low moisture moths as as you mentioned. And we slice it ourselves in house and in many of our pies are slices of cheese first and then sauce and whatever additional garnishes or elements make up that pie, but we also for the pies that we don't do slices. We will put Grande pre shredded cheese down as well. But we are firm believers in cheese and sauce rather than sauce and cheese and I know that that's again what makes pizza great and interesting is it not everybody sees it that way.

For us, what I like is that when we lay that cheese down, it does create a little bit of a barrier, a moisture barrier between the sauce and the dough.

“And so I think particularly when one thinks of like delivery and how pizza travels and the cheese helps with that.”

But you know, we also mess around with a lot of different cheese. We'll often cut our shredded with with monster or with gray air with other swisses with food with all sorts of things like chatters.

I love cheese. It's the one food I eat every day without fail. I don't eat it every day, but I eat cheese every single day and that's probably not great, but I certainly something that I enjoy very much.

So messing around and finding great fun cheeses that go on there. At to your point, there's often hard cheeses as well.

Some pecorino, some ricotta, ricotta slotted in the middle or farmage on or combination of all those or any number of other nice cheese for ready manchega. We've messed around with a lot of different cheeses and cheeses of fun component to put on a pie.

“And important, right? Pizza is dosa and cheese. That's really what pizza is. And once you understand it's dosa and cheese, you sort of, it's guys the limit.”

And we're having a lot of fun. I love being a pizza business. I love being a pizza game. Pizza is an exciting thing to make. And I just, I feel lucky that I get to learn new stuff all the time and really excited and certainly fans of the folks at King Arthur and the products that they offer us. And it makes up 80% of our pizza dough. Thank you so much Chef for joining us here. It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

Thank you very much to the pleasure to all mine.

Hey, it's Francis Lamb, host of the Splendid Table Podcast. Every week on a show, we celebrate the intersection of food and life. In this month, we're releasing a new series called Culinary Masters. It highlights some of those iconic people in the food world. And we're revisiting conversations with people who have fundamentally changed how many of us cook and think about food. People like Jacques Le Pan, Claudia Rodin, and Tony Bourdain, the name of few. You can listen to this special series now. Just search for the Splendid Table and your podcast app.

This episode is sponsored by Bride and Taylor. Bride and Taylor builds tools for all bread bakeries at every level to transform complex baking challenges into simple pleasures. Now, fans of the show will know that my main kitchen is notoriously cold and it takes forever for my dough to rise, which is why I love Bride and Taylor's folding proofer. It folds flat and then it's just this little heated pop up box that you can tuck your dough into and instead of say a seven hour rise time, your dough will rise in like the time it's supposed to. It's amazing.

“Yeah, I mean, God forbid, you should turn up the heat Jessica.”

Yeah, better tools mean better pizza find the bread trooper and many other tools at King Arthur baking dot com or at Bride and Taylor dot com. This episode is sponsored by Cario Spiceco, a woman owned mission driven spice company. Jessica, somebody sent me a box of the spices once and it was honestly one of the best gifts I've ever been given. I am obsessed with the furless spice which is full of single origin herbs and spices source from this little farm in Italy. It's got time, oregano, rosemary, chilies, it's great in pizza sauce or Jessica, I like kind of sprinkling on top as a finishing cup.

Oh yeah, I mean in addition to the blends, they also have, you know, single spices like they're Sicilian chili flakes, Greek oregano and Cyprus flake salt, which I sprinkle liberally over everything from salad to roasted potatoes. Yeah, or forgot to it, honestly.

“You can find select curious spice company spices at KingArthurbaking dot com and of course you can see their full collection at curiospice.com.”

That's curio, see you are IOspice.com. This episode is brought to you by our Grains for Good Program. As everyone knows, King Arthur is a certified B core, our values are all about people, planet and profit and our Grains for Good Program. Support all of that. With our Grains for Good Program, we support sustainable, regeneratively grown wheat.

Say that five times fast. That helps actively heal the planet against effects of climate change. You can find that we, in our golden wheat flour, one of my favorite flowers that we sell. You can buy it online or you can buy it on grocery shows. It's time for our next segment, ask the bakers.

For ask the bakers, we want to hear from you. If you have a burning baking question for us, head to KingArthurbaking.com/podcast to record a voice message. And we may end up using it on the show. It's KingArthurbaking.com/podcast.

And of course, if you have a baking question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to our Baker's hotline via phone, email or online chat.

Just go to KingArthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline. We're called 855-371-2253-2253 as a baking.

We're like three bakers. We're like three bakers.

“We add an extra S on the segment because once again, we have Martin Phillips with us here in the studio.”

Thank you for coming here. Martin's so excited to be here. Martin's on our holiday episode. True fans will know that he was on our holiday episode. But this is really the episode that it makes the most sense to have Martin on.

Because Martin is a co-author of the book of pizza. And also, I have to say, sidebar story. We spent a lot of time eating pizza in preparation for writing this book and while writing this book, a lot of research.

And I have never seen a person eat pizza in a weirder way.

I thought I was going to be called out for eating so much pizza. It's my method. What is it? What is it? I mean, the quantity is amazing.

You are truly a pro. I mean, how many of you went to what? 10 slice up. A lot. And we were even down there a couple weeks ago doing some filming and stuff.

And they were like, how do you eat so much pizza? No, it's like you've got a hollow leg of pizza. Yeah. I mean, I'm like a reserve gas tank type of person. You know, second stomach.

It's kind of amazing. I got off the subway to meet Martin at one of these. We were going to go to another pizza spot. And he like catches me by the trash can as I'm crossing the street with a paper plate with a slice on it. He's like, you got to try this one.

I thought we were. But the thing that you do is, I mean, you know, you're analyzing, right? Like you're eating the pizza. But the whole time, you're, I mean, I've seen you eat pizza like an old person, like just enjoy a slice.

But on a lot of these research trips, you're like crust first.

You flip your slice around. First you flip it over. You're looking at the bottom, undercarriage. Then you go crust first. You break open the crust.

And you're like. Sticky. Sticky. He's like, you're facing the end. Yeah.

And then, and only then, do you like eat a bite of it? Yeah. I'm learning the pizza. Yeah.

“And I, you know what, now that's how I eat pizza.”

Exactly. And now it's out of my husband. We're about to-- You're insulting all about it. So annoying.

We have questions to get to you, I think. We have a question. And the question is related to the solitaire. How do we get a really crispy bottom when baking New York style pizza at home?

Well, this is the million dollar question.

That's why we write here. I mean, I would say that the sort of shortest answer possible is that the crisp crust is the culmination of everything that happened before it. Right? All of the events that sort of line themselves up.

So what does it begin with? Well, it begins with the mix. And the aspect of the mix that supports a crisp crust is a low hydration dough. It needs to be a low hydration dough, right? Because if we go into that bake with a ton of water in the dough,

all that water has to come out before it eats in a way which perceives as crisp. Yeah, that makes sense. Right? So all the water's got to come back out. So don't start with too much water.

The next piece is a relatively short bake. And so that's what you know. Right. If the pizza went up in for an hour, that wouldn't necessarily be a problem. Right.

We don't have that time. Exactly. So going from the mix, low hydration firm dough, very key aspect of New York style. A little bit of oil in there also supports that crispness as well. And then the next step that affects Christmas, believe it or not, is fermentation.

Formatation affects it because what we do is we have you do a bulk mix. The dough rests for an hour. Then you round it. And then it sits for eight to ten hours, whatever it is. A long time.

And it relaxes. It relaxes, right?

“And so that allows you at the shaping phase to get this nice thin dough, right?”

Which is the second characteristic that I would look to is proper thinness. You know, nice thin dough. And then the third aspect is really the bake. Right. That's the bake.

So there are a couple things there to think about. One is baking surface. In the testing of the book and over the course of making a bazillion pizzas, right? Because we're pizza people. I found that my best tool at home is really the steel.

The steel was like even a level up from the use of the baking stone. So we don't recommend sheet trays. We say that the baking stones are okay. We say that the baking steel is really the thing that you want to use for the best possible results. The best crispiest results.

And finally, the other part that's key is the thing that they do in all good New York Slice Shops, which is the recrisp. Right. So after the bake, you can let it cool down fully. And then you go back across that stone or steel.

At a slightly lower temperature of possible. I don't find that it's great to put it back across the stone at 500 or 550. And in fact, in most pizzas, you'll see that they'll have a second oven, which will be like their recrisp oven.

Running at a slightly lower temp.

So you don't have to dry it. Exactly. The way to confirm that is, you know, using an infrared.

“I really think that like the infrared for pizza person.”

This is an infrared. The infrared thermometer is really like a tool that will boost your pizza making in your pizza quality in a way that I don't think people quite recognize. Yeah, for sure. Good tips.

I think we have, yeah, we do have another question. So let's hear it. Hi. I wanted to ask if you had any advice for toppings on pizza. Should I be pre-cooking the toppings?

How much is too much? And is there anything you wouldn't recommend using as a pizza topping? Thank you. Yes. Yes.

I like this question because when I was writing the topping section of this book, I was writing the way I write everything which was just sort of blindly. Just type type, see what comes out of my, my history. And then I go back and see, like, was there any of that right? Or is there that good?

And I ended up typing a sentence, no matter what. I forgot what to say. So I'm going to read it and dramatic voice. Okay, I'll just let me, you just, yeah, every vegetable. Yes, all of them.

Need to be given some TLC before it goes on your pizza. Need to be chopped, torn, wilted, squeezed, sauteed, salted, roasted, something. That's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so I wrote that and I was like, well, is that even true?

And then, I mean, thinking of, and I think when I wrote it, the first time I said,

every topping, yes, every single one, and that ended up to be not necessarily true. There are a few exceptions. Pepperoni. Pepperoni. I mean, the big one.

“Anyway, the point is, yes, you have to prep toppings.”

Most of them to do something else. You're going to be eating raw mushrooms, but all of that experience on a pizza. And it's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah.

And I think not only is it unpleasant because the vegetables not is going to remain raw, but like the water. Yeah. Like, why are we precooked in things? Because they're going to lose water in the oven, right?

I would say it's for texture, it's for flavor. Yeah, for water. Yeah, you put on like a bell pepper on there, raw. Yeah. This makes me mad.

We are no longer friends. No. We're breaking up. Yeah. So if it's a pizza that goes for 15 minutes, you know, maybe a pan style, then yes, you can get away

with something like a raw sausage on there. Absolutely. If it's a Neapolitan style and it's going for three minutes, you better put a little bit extra. TLC because it's just like a flash, you know. Yeah.

And, you know, some of that also to your points, like the Neapolitan style is a looser style, is a sapier style, is a less crisp undercarriage sort of style.

“So I think that there's an allowance there for a pointy eating a pizza, which almost”

perceives like a noodle, you know, a pasta noodle with red sauce, right? Whereas with a classic like New York style, man, if it's soppy, something's wrong. Something's gone wrong. Anyway, I think we have one last question.

When making New York pizza or similar styles, I have trouble stretching the dough thin enough without it tearing. Any tips? Oh, me too. I have, I have to, I had this problem.

Listen, I hope you have another hour free because we're going to let Martin run. Just let me run on it. I mean, in so many ways, this is exactly the same as the sort of crispness. Crispness, crispness, crispness, question. It's outcome, right?

Yeah. So if you're focusing on like the fact that you have holes, that's the outcome of something else that occurred in the process, right? So that your hand fist is the same as like, oh, I made a baguette and my cuts didn't open.

I don't have nice ears or I made a baguette and it's got a tight, I'll be there structure. Okay. Well, that is result, what you're experiencing is result, right, of something else that happened prior to that point in your

do making pizza in the process, right? Okay.

So knowing that it occurred before, here's what I would say,

and that is that the dough didn't relax enough, right? And so if you look at many of the recipes in the book, what we've built in is a timeline which will accommodate or facilitate an easier shaping experience, right? So after the initial period of bulk, one hour,

in the case of hour like New York style dough, the dough is rounded, it's put into containers, it rests at ambient condition, right? Room temperature, 8 to 10 hours, and then it's chilled for up to several days.

And during that time period, the gluten that we've developed and, you know, relied upon as being, you know, coming in from the bread flour that we've prescribed has a chance to relax.

And so it should be that when you turn that dough out on the counter and you start the pressing phase of the shaping process, the dough should press pretty well. Now, if it's not pressing pretty well or if you're pressing,

just cover it, let it rest for 30 minutes,

and then come back and let it stretch, do you know, using gravity to do the work, and using the weight of the dough to sort of stretch at the rate, which that dough is ready for. And this is another reason why people might want to watch this,

rather than listen to it, because Martin was just doing something really interesting with his hands. And we have QR code in the book that show this, but it's like, you had your fist ball, and you're like turning your steering wheel.

I like it sort of, yeah, it's like your,

“which I think, I mean, and I think you're right,”

there is technique to it, you know, the pressing and then the moving to the stretch. And a lot of that, you know, the videos of you making pizzas on YouTube, like you show a lot of these in the QR code videos of the book.

But I also think, and I'm just like, maybe I'm projecting, but I imagine that this collar, because I have been this collar, has done something, which is like, you buy dough at the grocery store,

because you want pizza that night, which is a fine thing to do. Of course. You get a home, it's cold, fridge cold, and you're like, we got to get pizza going,

like it's go time. And you're trying to stretch this cold ball of dough. Yeah. And like, it doesn't matter if you have all the technique in the world. Like it is not going to stretch nicely.

Yeah. Which is the same as true of homemade dough, but I think people don't want it. Like, you've bought this convenience product, and you're like, I'm ready to go.

Yeah. It's not ready to go. Let me of you, like, two more quick, like, quick hot tips. One, tempering the dough is not something that everybody has sort of

“has built into their pizza practice, right?”

What do you mean by tempering? So what we mean by that is, there's a period of time from when the dough is in the fridge, to when you're actually going to go to shape it. And it's a period where you're allowing it to come towards room temperature.

I mean, I get all the way to room temperature, but giving it that period of sort of wake up. It's like, you know, in the same way that, you know, if you took a nap, when you get up, you're not ready to run out of bed.

You know what I mean? No. That's sort of like-- No. [laughter]

You've got a period of time when your body is sort of like, okay, I'm limmering up. I'm ready to become a pizza. So tempering can be very helpful for that. And the other one is that listen.

There's no shape. There's no, like, shame in pinning a dough. You can-- Yeah, you can use a pin. And in fact, you know, during some of the testing that I did for the book,

I did try using a pin. And absolutely for a New York style, especially for a larger one. You just need a small pin. Four to five inches in length.

And then rolling from the center to the edge, trying to avoid the edge crest if you can. But if you go onto the edge crest a little bit, that's not-- that's okay. Yeah.

That's perfectly fine. I mean, there are plenty of pizza shops. New York style included that are using a pizza press, which homogenously smashes the dough nice and flat. There's nothing wrong with that.

There's no shame in pinning a dough. So a couple of work arounds. The other thing I would add to that is this-- This takes practice. Yeah.

If you're not going to stretch a pizza-- Yeah.

Beautifully the first time.

No. No. You're not even going to pin a pizza, beautifully the first time. Yeah.

Yeah. If who cares if pizza's a little misshapin-- Yeah. Taring is one thing I get it. Like that's a problem.

Yeah. But shaping in general is a skill. Yeah. Yeah. You need to practice to master.

Yeah. Eat more pizza. Pizza is a practice just like all other aspects of baking.

“And the best way to get better is to make mistakes.”

Right. So throw some pizzas in there and fling them against the back wall of the oven. And next time you'll be a little bit more cautious. Yeah. I think it's true.

And there's so many-- the two of you just put so much care into getting all these tips and tricks and techniques in this book. So it's a great resource. And we have, as I said, so many videos of you making all styles of pizza on our YouTube channel.

And it's always a treat to talk, talk baking with you, my friend.

That's what I like. Yeah. Do you want to stick around for just opinions? I would love to. Oh, you-- right here.

Can I push that? Is there an opportunity for that? That's your job. That's why I want to stay. That's why I want to stay.

It's our dynamic as now. This is bringing the friction. Right. Now for the spicy part of the show. So that's spicy.

Well, here we go. Every episode, we like to check in with Jessica to see what wildly surprising and full-throated opinions are in her head. I segment we love in the call, "Jesse opinions." Jessica, your pizza, "Jesse opinion." I feel like so many of my opinions are like anti-populist.

And that-- that I'm just like, I'm developing a little bit of a reputation. It's like, I just am like, oh, you look at that, then I'm all like that. And here I come again to say-- She's 13 years old. Yeah.

Actually, I know that people Americans really enjoy a combination of pizza combination of pizza and ranch dressing. And I think it is gross. Oh, God. So gross. I do not like-- I like a good homemade ranch dressing.

The ranch that you get with the grocery store that people are just dunking in.

No, thank you. That does not appeal to me at all. Okay, wait. So I need some clarification. Is your just opinion that--

Well, it's stressing us gross, yes. Oh, ranch and pizza should not-- Yeah, ranch bad. ranch bad. Ranch on pizza.

Oh, wait, you don't-- Oh, ranch at all. I don't. I like our homemade ranch. Homemade ranch.

Gotcha. So this is like-- if it's-- if it's homemade ranch-- Yeah, what do you want to do out of pizza? Okay, so now we're-- Yes.

Are you guys slow down? Can you hear me with me? Just a penis at the point. Let's stick with one. Let's stick with pizza and ranch.

Yes. I do not think-- Should we come back?

“But is there a difference between like the drizzle and the dunk?”

I guess that's my question.

The dunk is the one that's even worse. That's really offensive to me. Okay. All right. Yeah.

I just don't think it's an enhancement. I think it's a distraction. I don't know. I don't know. You know, I mean, people have a lot of feelings about crust.

And a lot of people need a little incentive to finish that last bite. And they want to dip it into something dipping in pizza sauce or marinara or olive oil or ranch or cheese. You know, in the hamburger that's a whole style of-- Oh, yeah. Yeah.

They serve with honey. So just for the crust. I don't like all of it. I think it's fun to dip your crust in something. You know, I think it's-- I think it's--

I think it's-- what you do if your crust isn't very good. Yeah. That's what I think. I think you're like, oh, my crust doesn't taste great. I don't get in ranch dressing.

Yeah. If you have a really good pizza crust, I actually love when I go to pizza restaurants with,

like, even my kids, like, they're better now in the eating crust.

But like, they leave a lot of bones behind. Yeah. And I'm like, I will eat like one regular slice of pizza. And then I just collect all the bones. And that to me is the best part of good pizza.

It's a crust. Yeah. But we put butter on bread. Sure. I mean, I didn't say butter.

I said ranch. True. I wouldn't put ranch dressing. I was like, I said bread either. I'm a level that you love.

Yeah. That's what you love, man. So like, what pineapple goes for it? I don't really care. I mean, like, that's your mouth, not mine.

You know, that's your mouth, not mine. That's a t-shirt. Okay. So, you know, that's it. That's what I thought.

You got it off your chest. Yeah. That's it. We do have a great ranch recipe in the book. Which I would put on a salad.

Yeah. That's where it belongs. Delicious. The end. There you go.

Yeah. All right. Well, Marta Phillip, thank you so much for coming. Best in the business. This is not the last time you'll be on the bottom.

Okay, head back. But catch some martin on the streets talking about pizza. That's right. Yeah. In New York, in Boston.

Yeah. I hope we're going to send him to California. Yeah. We're taking the show on the road. Yeah.

And there's also on demand. Class. New York style pizza coming up. New American pizza. New American pizza on the YouTube.

Lots of the pizza content. Pizza people. Yeah. So now that I've made it clear that I won't be making ranch pizza this week. I do want to talk about what we will be baking.

“So what's on your baking agenda for the week ahead?”

After all this pizza talk, I'm making pizza of course. So I'm going to make some more recipes from from the book. The recipe, you know, as we've discussed before on the show. Sort of one of my just opinion. My favorite topping is no topping at all.

I like just like a sauce. Yeah. No cheese or thyme. So I love the recipe in the book. It's just sauce.

Some anchovy, some garlic. Some olive oil, some oregano. And maybe some heart cheese at the end if you want. Yeah. And I do that on the tanda style.

Cross, which is super, super thin. A Roman style, super thin, super crispy. You paint it. You roll it out with a pan. It's really easy to work with because it's such a low hydration.

And it's great. It's a really good day. It's, it's a snack. Yeah, I was going to say, how many pizzas do you need? You need a least one per person.

[LAUGHTER] Done. How about you? Well, you know, just looking through this book again, I was reminded about we have this olive oil cake.

Mm-hmm. That is in the book. And we have a version of it on our side. It's called the Everyday Olive Oil Cake. And it's, it makes a nice eight inch round single layer cake.

It's got a half a cup of like a fruity olive oil. And it's that flavor really comes through. But it's also just such a riff-able cake.

“Like, I think the version on the website has like,”

orange-est in it. I've done it with lemon zest instead of orange zest. You can replace some of the all-purpose flour with almond flour. Um, and the version in the pizza book has chocolate ganache. Pour it over the top.

And it's just, it's a very straightforward simple cake. But like, very classy elegant. It's an elegant cake. Yeah. And also because it's all oil, it keeps.

So it's like one of those cakes you can have on the countertop. And you just like, whittle away at, you know, as though we goes on.

Um, you know, over the course of several days.

Like, the flavor deepens. The texture is really plush and nice.

“Um, and it's like just a stir together thing.”

Yeah. It's a great cake. It's definitely a recipe, right? It's, sort of. I think so.

Stephanie Lou did that for a second few years ago.

And it's become this classic that like, everyone in King Arthur makes all the time.

“And the one in the pizza book is so cool.”

It's a beautiful photo too. Yeah. And I will note that, you know, I'm not the only one that likes it right now. I mean, it's got 59 five star reviews.

Nice. People are into this cake. It's like, it's a great one to have in Europe. So I'm going to make that. Nice.

I'll see you next week. Yeah, you will. In the meantime,

as always, thank you for listening to things Bakers know.

“Remember to like and subscribe as wherever you're listening,”

whether it's Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon, music, or wherever. And leave us a review while you're there or share this episode with a friend because baking, especially baking pizza more fun together. Pizza party. Yeah, for sure.

That what Martin said, baking is an active love for somebody else. I almost threw up saying ham. I was like, I was like, he's got a cry. I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I know. I know.

In the meantime, people, when you're making your pizza, do not forget, follow the recipe. Things Bakers know is hosted and executive produced by me, David, to market. And me, Jessica, Patelana. Rossi and us to Pula with our senior producer,

Chad, Chennai is our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala. And thanks again to Wiley, do, frame for appearing on today's episode. You can learn more about ham and his pizza at stretchpizzaNYC.com. Thanks Bakers know is a King Arthur baking company podcast.