Loading summary
Transcript165 lines
- [00:00]
A
This season is brought to you by Plugra premium European style butter made using a slow churn process. Look for Plugra wherever fine butters are sold.
- [00:09]
B
I absolutely understand not wanting to change. I hate change. So if you're like me and you want to continue proofing your yeast, fine, go for it. But for the rest of us, you don't need to worry about that.
- [00:18]
A
Here's the step. From King Arthur Baking Company. This is things bakers know. I'm Jessica Battolana, King Arthur's staff editor.
- [00:29]
B
And I'm David Tamarkin, editorial director at King Arthur. And today we're here with a very special bonus episode to talk about one of the most exciting things to come out of our test kitchen in literally 12 months.
- [00:42]
A
Take a breath.
- [00:45]
B
It's our recipe of the year.
- [00:46]
A
Oh, yes. I love our recipe of the year.
- [00:50]
B
And if you don't know what King Arthur's recipe of the year is, buckle up. I'm about to tell you. Every January, we release a recipe that we think you should be baking all year long and honestly, for years after that. But really, we think this is a landmark recipe that's going to change the way you bake.
- [01:08]
A
It's going to change your life.
- [01:09]
B
It's going to change your life.
- [01:09]
A
It's change your life.
- [01:10]
B
It's sort of like the pantone color of the year.
- [01:13]
A
Well, I, you know, even before I started it at King Arthur, I mean, it's hard to imagine a time before I worked at King Arthur, isn't it? It's like the before times.
- [01:21]
B
Oh, my gosh. Before we got to talk every day. I don't remember.
- [01:24]
A
I mean, before both of us. Yeah, I think so. I used to anticipate what the recipe of the year was before I was an employee owner because it was always just like a. A really great thing that I wanted to make. And you just knew that. So much I didn't know at the time, but, you know, like, it just seemed like so much rigor went into it, and there was so much excitement.
- [01:45]
B
Around it and some previous recipes of the year, because you're about to tell everyone what this recipe is.
- [01:50]
A
Oh, I get to tell them?
- [01:51]
B
Yes. Oh, yes.
- [01:52]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [01:53]
B
I'm going to do a drum roll on my desk, and you're going to tell them. Let's just look at the past few years of recipe of the year. So wait, first of all, can somebody tell me what year it is?
- [02:04]
A
We are in 2026.
- [02:06]
B
Okay, great. And I have other questions of that sort, but I'm going to Wait till after the podcast, you know, to ask you. In 2023, it was the 10 year anniversary of recipe of the year and we did 10 styles of coffee cake. In 2024, we did a big swing and we came out with a chocolate chip cookie that no one had ever seen before. It uses the Tangzhong method. And in 2025, we did the world's best focaccia. Really, the only focaccia recipe anybody ever needs.
- [02:31]
A
Yeah, that one's really good.
- [02:33]
B
And now can you hear this drum roll?
- [02:38]
A
I can. I can hear the drum roll. I'm gonna do it too, just to really drive it home. This year, it is a flaky puff crust pizza.
- [02:47]
B
Ta da.
- [02:48]
A
Ta da.
- [02:50]
B
And I've already made this recipe a dozen times.
- [02:52]
A
I mean, really? That's amazing.
- [02:54]
B
Oh my God, I'm obsessed with this recipe. It's so good. But I don't expect people to really know what it is just by saying flaky puff crust pizza. Cause you know what, it's actually a totally new thing. It's a new style of pizza and nobody knows what flaky puff crust pizza is. So, Jessica, let me ask you, what the heck is flaky puff crust pizza?
- [03:15]
A
Well, I agree, it's really exciting. I mean, I think what is cool about Recipe of the Year is that, you know, the recipe is always something, I think that is familiar to people but has been sort of like wholly optimized by our test kitchen. So, you know, like when we did the chocolate chip cookie a few years ago, like, everyone's like, oh yeah, I know what a chocolate chip cookie is, but they had never had a chocolate chip cookie quite like that. And I think that is true of this flaky puff crust pizza. Because, you know, as listeners of the podcast will know, you and I have been working with our colleague Martin Philipp on this pizza book for a number of years that's coming out in April of this year, pretty soon, right around the corner. And so we had pizza very much on, on our minds. And you know, many years ago, we did a crispy cheesy pan pizza as recipe of the year, which was like the very puffy thick crust baked in a skillet. Honestly, a recipe that I make all the time. But we wanted to sort of. So we were talking a lot about pizza, we were thinking a lot about pizza. And you know, we started sort of batting ideas around, like, what about, you know, a tavern style pizza? Like a Midwestern tavern style pizza.
- [04:24]
B
I'm really pushing that Midwest agenda.
- [04:26]
A
Yeah, I know you're just like, you won't get off. But I think one of the things that struck us about that one is that there's butter in the dough. And so that sort of got the wheels turning of like, what else could we do with a pizza crust where we could incorporate butter? Because as you know, listeners of episode one of season two know, huge butter fans and you know, there's been a lot of work in the test kitchen and sort of like in the baking world at large, like with this idea of laminated baked goods. So like a laminated challah where, you know, frozen butter is in incorporated or you know, a buttery sort of croissant style sourdough where butter gets mixed into it. So all of these things were kind of in our mind as we started to consider the recipe of the year. And so this is not a recipe that I work closely on. So I think, I mean, you can clarify for our listeners. But I think it sort of starts with that nugget of an idea and then it gets kind of kicked to our test kitchen to think about how to bring it to life.
- [05:28]
B
Yeah. Every year we knock around a couple categories of Recipe of the year. Is it going to be a brownie, Is it going to be a biscuit, Is it going to be pizza? So on and so forth. We send those categories out to a select group of employee owners here at King Arthur. Everybody votes, we have lots of conversation. We probably put out another set of categories and vote again. There's drama, there's laughter.
- [05:52]
A
It does start like, I mean, it basically starts in February, like for the next year. So we're going to start to think about Recipe of the year 2027. Like I probably tomorrow.
- [06:01]
B
Exactly. And actually that's sort of the other meaning of Recipe of the year. It was the recipe of our year for 2025. Cause we were developing it and thinking about it and talking about it for a year and now it's America's recipe of the year for 2026. Yes. And I think you teed it up really nicely. We were thinking about these Midwest style thin crust buttery pizzas, which I just feel like there's this energy around that style of pizza lately. I feel like people are more into it now, they're more aware of it. Two bakers in our test kitchen who worked on this pizza, Sarah John Pell and Molly Margiel. What they created is beyond the Midwest style pizza. It's not your typical Midwest style pizza. They really took the butter portion of it and really amped it up. By a hundred. And that's not to say that they added a ton of butter to it, but they basically what they did is they laminated the dough and created a pizza that has a really crispy, I'm going to say undercarriage, really crispy bottom, a truly flaky, puffy crust. And I mean the side view on this thing, it's like at the ocean waves, waves of crust in, in and out and up and down.
- [07:10]
A
And it's really neat. When you watch it bake, like, actually you can sort of see it visibly puff. Like parts of it sort of rise up with these big bubbles. And it's very dramatic in the oven. And then, you know, as it comes out of the oven that sort of settles down. You know, it's just like the same, you know, technique that we talk about with pie crust. When you have cold butter, you know, between layers of a lean dough, that butter melts, it generates steam. The steam creates those pockets. So the same thing is happening in this pizza dough. And so you get like, yeah, like you said, you actually get these sort of striations, these layers. Also what I really like about this, as I said, I'm a huge crispy cheesy pan pizza fan. But you know, since I started making that, like my children have gotten older and my two sons can like house a crispy cheesy pan pizza themselves, no problem. So this flaky puff crust pizza is a large format pizza too. It's made in an 18 by 13 rimmed baking sheet. So more pizza, more party is what I say. That's the first time I've ever said that, but not the last.
- [08:21]
B
But it's true. That's the benefit of a sheet pan pizza that you can feed a whole group of people with just one pie. And this is a great pizza party pizza.
- [08:31]
A
Yeah, but not so difficult that you can't make it on a weeknight either. And I think for me, you know, as we were working on this pizza book, like I love, you know, a round pizza that you bake on your pizza stone or that you bake in your tabletop oven. But it's sort of like, you know, especially if you're baking them in the home oven, you. It's a little bit like the pancake problem, right? Like you can't make them fast enough to feed a crowd easily, which is another reason this is nice. And also like, because it is rich, it has that butter in it. Like, it feels very satisfying and delicious. And also the leftover pieces of pizza, you know, I know that Way back in season one, we talked about pizza and we had a very robust discussion about how to reheat pizza. And that's when I blew your mind.
- [09:24]
B
Oh, my God. I've thought about it every day since.
- [09:27]
A
Yeah, I hope you have. Well, I thought about you the other day because, you know, I had some of this flaky puff crust pizza left and I was like, it's not. It didn't seem appropriate to the style. I basically was like, I need to get this crust crisp again because then it'll sort of like. Like reheating a croissant or anything laminated. Like, I needed some direct heat on that. So I did. Your tip of heating a slice on top of the grates of my toaster.
- [09:56]
B
Yeah.
- [09:57]
A
Worked great. It was like.
- [09:58]
B
As opposed to your way, which is slamming the pizza cheese knife down in a hot skillet.
- [10:02]
A
In a skillet. Yeah.
- [10:04]
B
And pretending that that works.
- [10:06]
A
I didn't get as much, you know, I didn't hear as much from people as I would have thought about that.
- [10:12]
B
Maybe, maybe I was.
- [10:13]
A
It wasn't as provocative as I thought.
- [10:14]
B
You know, it was like, oh, my gosh, I love melted cheese. I love fondue. I'm going to do this. All right, well, we have a great conversation coming up with Sarah and Molly. I got to talk to them about how they developed this pizza. You and I, we were not in the weeds on this pizza. It was really Sarah and Molly who did it. And one of the things that I think is really special is that they did it together. Which, as you know, as a recipe develop is very unusual. It's usually a very solitary activity. But this, you know, recipe of the year, you gotta get two. You gotta get two masters on it.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah, it's true. I mean, and like, it's very easy for me to love and appreciate this pizza. Cause it was not my blood, sweat and tears that went into it. But as always, I mean, they did a great job and they did it together. And I mean, they're such stars, those two.
- [10:57]
B
Yeah. So Sarah Jean Pell and Molly maisellecalli are two bakers in the King Arthur test kitchen. Let's hear our conversation with them. Molly, Sarah, thank so much for joining us again. It's a pleasure to have you. Look, my first question for you may be simple, maybe hard. Are you sick of pizza yet? Is it possible to be sick of pizza? And are you sick of it yet?
- [11:19]
C
Never sick of pizza. No.
- [11:22]
B
Honestly, that is surprising to me. Because you made how many pizzas, how many versions of this pizza in the test kitchen.
- [11:30]
C
Are we talking running total of pizzas?
- [11:33]
B
Yes.
- [11:34]
C
Sarah and I just talked about this earlier this week, and we think we're definitely upwards of 70. Probably closing in on 100.
- [11:42]
B
Yeah. Okay, great. My God, that's a lot. And that. And for listeners, that is in a period of about six months. So. Yeah. When did this begin?
- [11:51]
D
March. And now It's October. So six to seven months.
- [11:54]
B
Yeah, six to seven months. You know, 100 prototypes in six to seven months. It's a ton of pizza. And this was really challenging. Well, for me, from an outsider perspective, not the one doing the work in the kitchen, it seemed like this was a challenging recipe and one of the challenges that you faced. I know because I'm one of the people who set forth the challenge, who tasked you with it, was to make a pizza that was new, was to make a pizza that felt new, that felt innovative, which is not a small feat considering how much has been done with pizza in the course of history. So how did you go about tackling that?
- [12:32]
D
I would say from a really roundabout sort of messy beginning. I think oftentimes when we talk about recipe of the year, we talk about sort of this, like, identity crisis that the recipe goes through somewhere along the way. And I think for this recipe, that sort of happened right off the bat because we knew we wanted to, like you said, make a pizza that felt really new and innovative, but we also didn't want the pizza necessarily to be a huge project that only with pizza ovens would make. So it was really a fine balance to figure out what is going to be a pizza that's unique enough that someone would want to make it at home instead of like going to the grocery store and buying a pizza from the freezer aisle or ordering a pizza, like, what can be compelling about it, but how can we also make it accessible? And I think we floundered a lot, to be honest, in the beginning, like Molly and I, we were looking back at some of the earliest pizzas we made, and it's honestly sort of laughable. I mean, I was excited about them in the moment and I. I felt like, woo, this is promising. But when I think back about to what we were doing, it was crazy. So, like, from the beginning, we knew we had a few things that we knew. So we have another very famous pizza in our archives, which is the crispy cheesy pan pizza. And that was sort of our foil the whole time. We knew we couldn't make a pizza that was a pan, like a bready pan pizza, because we have that and it's beloved and it's great. So we wanted to make a larger pizza. And we knew from the beginning that we didn't want to use special equipment like a steel or a stone. So we had those sort of challenges at the very beginning. How are we going to make a pizza that feeds a lot of people and that can be made in a sheet pan without a steel? So we started there.
- [14:24]
B
And one of your, one of these early experiments that you now look back on with extreme shame is, was one of them was a, like a baking soda pizza. Right? Am I remembering that correctly, Molly?
- [14:36]
C
Baking powder.
- [14:37]
A
Yes.
- [14:38]
C
That was when we were holding really strongly onto the idea of could we do great pizza in one hour. So we tried that for a couple weeks, I don't know, two or three weeks max. And like Sarah said, there was excitement around that. I remember being really excited about that and that wasn't wise. So we didn't go farther down that path.
- [15:02]
B
I tasted that pizza. It was interesting. I mean, I liked it. But I just, I think the conversation, the conversation I remember, which is, I think the conversation we have around a lot of our recipes is, is the benefit of this recipe going to be that it's fast or is the benefit going to be it's going to be the absolute best pizza you've ever tasted?
- [15:17]
D
You know, I remember asking a neighbor who makes pizza regularly, but she makes it from store bought dough. And I said, if you're going, if we're going to ask you to make pizza from scratch in a weeknight, how long can it take? And she said 15 minutes. And I was like, oh, oh, okay.
- [15:32]
E
This is a different level.
- [15:33]
D
Like an hour is not going to do it for you on a weeknight if you are trying to feed hungry, whiny people in your house. So then we decided, let's aim for the best pizza.
- [15:44]
B
I want to talk about cheese because there was a real cheese journey with this pizza. And if I am not incorrect, there were three types of cheese on this pizza, two types of mozzarella and some parmesan. I would love for you, Molly, to tell me why we have two different types of mozzarella on this pizza. And then sa you to talk about the parmesan because you have some very surprising opinions about parm on pizza. So let's start before we get there, let's start with you, Molly. Molly. Mozzarella.
- [16:13]
C
I don't have the hot take on Parmesan that Sarah does. So the two types of mozzarella, it goes a little something like this, like the grated mozzarella that goes down first? Well, not for. Technically not first. It's. The second cheese that goes down is the grated mozzarella. We recommend whole milk for that, so really buy a block of who shred that yourself Packet prepackaged shredded cheese. Fine. In a pinch, I'm not gonna tell you how to top your pizza, but it's not gonna melt as nice as whole milk that you. That you shred yourself. So that's kind of like the cheese that gives you. It's. The recipe calls for 8 ounces. You get good coverage across the whole pie with that. And then we call for 4 ounces of fresh cubed mozzarella. Now, the cubed mozzarella started as thinly sliced mozzarella, but we had some.
- [17:08]
A
Tasting.
- [17:09]
C
So we went from sliced to cubed because smaller portions still melts beautifully. Gives the pizza a really nice visual appearance. Can. And it's those small cubes that will lead to, like, your cheese pull. Even though I feel pretty strongly that this isn't, like, a major cheese pull pizza, it can happen, of course, but that's not the. That's not the focus.
- [17:34]
B
Not every pizza has to be a cheese pull pizza.
- [17:37]
C
You know, it doesn't. It doesn't.
- [17:38]
B
It doesn't. That's a hot. That's a Jess opinion right there. And so that's the mozzarella. There's also parm on this pizza, and it's in a really weird place. Sarah, tell us about the parm.
- [17:50]
D
Can I say a few more things about the mozzarella first?
- [17:53]
B
Absolutely.
- [17:55]
D
One thing, one descriptor of food that we've come to use a lot in the test kitchen that I love is helmet. It.
- [18:02]
B
What? I've never heard this with, like, crumbs.
- [18:06]
C
On a crumb cake.
- [18:07]
D
Yeah. Like, if. You know, if crumbs, you know, there's. There's too much fat. Yeah, I would think usually too much fat. And they sort of just like, glom onto the cake, like a really thick, hard layer of crumbs as opposed to, like, light, airy crumbs. They're sort of a helmet. And that's. I felt pretty strongly that this pizza needed some fresh mozzarella on it, as opposed to just the low moisture. Because if low moisture on the whole pizza forms a helmet, it just sort of like, sits there very heavy. It's not creamy. It just doesn't have the moisture content, and it browns so evenly that it's just like this brown helmet on top of your pizza.
- [18:46]
B
Let's Go on to the parm, because it is in a very surprising place on this pizza. And that, I think, is basically all you're doing. Sarah, so tell us how you feel about parm on pizza.
- [18:57]
D
No, this was Molly's idea. It was my opinion and Molly's execution, which is just a good example of, like, how collaboration works so beautifully. Like, someone points out a problem, someone has a solution. We had a tasting that I found is devastating. The right word. It was. I got over it, but it was like us presenting. You know, we had an initial tasting that I would say went very poorly. The feedback was like, this pizza is missing something. And, David, I believe you said.
- [19:30]
B
I do think h cheese. You know, I have. I have some strong opinions about double cheese on pizza. So, yes.
- [19:36]
D
And to be fair, in the end, you were right. It was totally valid feedback to give, but I feel really strongly about cooked Parmesan cheese. I just think when Parmesan cheese browns, it gets a flavor that is totally different than fresh Parmesan cheese. And I think that.
- [19:58]
B
Which is a really fair point, which is why so many pizzas, the parm goes on after it's out of the oven. Right. So you do that, sprinkle it then.
- [20:07]
D
There was also some feedback in this meeting that perhaps the pizza was a little low in salt. So Molly had the idea of basically hiding the Parmesan cheese. So now the pizza is pizza dough, pizza sauce, Parmesan cheese, and then mozzarellas, too. And so the Parmesan cheese is insulated from the. The heat of the oven. So it does add, like, you know, it adds that aged cheese salinity, but it doesn't brown. So I think it just, like, adds a little je ne sais quoi. Like, you don't need to know it's there, but it is doing something.
- [20:38]
B
Yeah.
- [20:39]
D
And you put more on top after as well.
- [20:41]
B
I'm so glad we're talking about this, because it really does just help explain to our audience how thoughtful y' all have been about this pizza and how hard it is. You know, it's really hard to put something you're creating out there in the world over and over and over again. And all creatives do that, Right? But recipes, everybody's so opinionated about food and particularly about pizza. So you had a really hard job, like, navigating all this feedback, and I really appreciate both of you for doing that. I think the result is the best pizza I've ever had in my life. It really is a pizza unlike any other. It takes a couple hours it's so worth it. I hope that everybody tries this pizza. I hope they think of you two when they do it because, you know, we have you to thank for it. So thank you so much for all the work you did with this pizza and thank you for everything you do for King Arthur.
- [21:26]
A
This episode is brought to you by Plugra Premium European style butter. Plugra butter is developed by Chefs for Chefs and was designed for professional quality results. But it's not just for professional chefs. Home bakers can rely on that same precision for everything from pie crusts to laminated pastries. I know you're making a lot of laminated pastries at home, right, David?
- [21:46]
B
Well, I mean, I do sometimes I try. I do rough puff. I gotta say say. But whenever I do, I do like a butter with Plugra's butter fat. It's 82% butter fat. And look, if it's good enough for chefs, it's good enough for me, you know?
- [21:59]
A
Totally.
- [22:00]
B
So look for Pfluger butter wherever fine butters are sold. This episode is brought to you by the number one New York Times best selling Big Book of Bread, which contains my go to challah recipe as well as over 100 more amazing bread recipes from pickled jalapeno cheddar bread bread to cacio e pepe rolls. Oh, and by the way, it was co written by Jessica.
- [22:21]
A
Yeah, it was. I love this book and the challah is just one of the brilliant recipes in here. We have lots of videos to help you with braiding your challah. Whether you want to do a four strand, a three strand, a 25 strand, who knows? Sky's the limit. Big Book of Bread available wherever books are sold or on our website, kingarthurbaking.com it's time for our next segment, Ask the Bakers for Ask the Bakers. We want to hear from you. If you have a baking question for us, head to kingarthurbaking.com podcast and record a voice message and we may end up using it on the show. That's kingarthurbaking.com podcast.
- [23:00]
B
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, that's kingarthurbaking.com or call us 855-371-2253. That's 2253 as in bake.
- [23:24]
A
We got more questions today and hopefully we have more answers. Let's Hear them.
- [23:30]
E
Hi, my name is Sarah, and I'm a home baker. I love your pod. Don't change a thing. My question is, I was just mixing up some bread dough for a pizza crust, and I was thinking a lot of older recipes have you put your yeast in the water with some sugar and then wait for it to get foamy. And then I've noticed that in more modern recipes, or maybe it's just my imagination that a lot of them now you just tend to mix the flour in right away and then let it proof and go from there. So what I'm wondering is, do the two different steps make a big difference? Should you wait for your yeast to get foamy for five minutes before adding your flour? Or is mixing it all together the same result? Thank you.
- [24:23]
B
This is a great question. I'm excited to do some debunking on yeast and how to prep it before we get there, I just want to note, this caller said, well, first of all, this caller loves the podcast. And so this caller can do no wrong.
- [24:36]
A
This caller's our best friend.
- [24:37]
B
This caller started by saying that they were making bread dough for pizza crust. And that got my attention because we're very particular here at King Arthur. We have lots of recipes specifically for pizza and for bread. There are some bread recipes that are very flexible and that you can make pizza out of them. And I remember working with Brian and Philip years ago, and we were working with the everyday French loaf bread, which is just a crusty bread that's on our site. We made it into a loaf of bread, but we also made some great pizzas out of it. So I think that's an interesting point out there. If you find this Goldilocks recipe that works for you for bread and pizza, that's very cool. Go for that. On the topic of yeast, this is a great question. Yeast no longer needs to be proofed before you incorporate it into the dough. This is something that we used to do.
- [25:22]
A
Myth busted.
- [25:23]
B
I'm out here myth busting every day. Active dry yeast is manufactured now in a much different way than many years ago. We have this habit based on the way yeast used to be produced. That that causes us to, you know, want to proof it, make sure all the yeast in there is alive. And that's what really that, you know, that proofing period was about. It was to prove that there was enough yeast in the packet still living and able to eat up all those sugars in the dough and eventually produce gas to let the dough rise.
- [25:53]
A
And that's why you used to do it with a pinch of sugar too. Right. Because sugar really juices up your yeast right away. So you could see almost immediately like you gave it, like, just like giving a child a a pack of Twizzlers, you could see right away if it was gonna take effect.
- [26:08]
B
Yeah. I gave them an immediate snack in the sugar high and got them all excited. The way yeast is produced now, it's a much gentler process. Much more of the yeast is alive. So you really don't need to ensure that you're getting live yeast. You can just go into your bread or pizza making with confidence. Now, if you still want to do it, there's absolutely no problem with doing it. You can always incorporate it if that's what makes you feel good or it's just the way you've done things all along and you don't want to change.
- [26:35]
A
Change.
- [26:35]
B
I absolutely understand not wanting to change. I hate change. So if you're like me and you want to continue proofing your yeast, fine, go for it. But for the rest of us, you don't need to worry about that.
- [26:45]
A
And this is true whether you're using active dry yeast, like the kind that comes in little packages, you know, the.
- [26:50]
B
Sort of strips or ady, as the bakers, as we say. Ady.
- [26:55]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [26:56]
B
Ady. Oh, get with it.
- [26:58]
A
Wow. You know, so whether you're using active dry yeast. Ady. Or you're using instant yeast, which is the preference of our test kitchen, and.
- [27:04]
E
Just throw it in there.
- [27:06]
B
Goodbye, proofing yeast or no, you're safe either way.
- [27:09]
A
Great question. Should we hear another one?
- [27:11]
B
Yeah, let's do it. Let's bust another myth. I have a question about cheese that goes on pizza. What is the best cheese for that? Given the water content of fresh mozzarella to low moisture to aged parmesan, I've never been out of fully nail it, and I would love your advice. Thanks a lot, David.
- [27:32]
A
Conservatively, how many hours do you think you spent in the last year considering pizza cheese? As you were writing our forthcoming pizza book, which is comes out in April, but I. You log some time.
- [27:43]
B
I did log some time. It was the first section of the book I wrote, and I really did rack my brain, and I have a whole graph in there about overlapping. I don't like to do anything alone. You and I co wrote it with three other people. There were a lot of conversations about where in this Venn diagram does this cheese go? Does this cheese go go. I'm jumping ahead a little bit ahead here, but the Venn diagram was cheeses for flavor and cheeses for meltability. So, you know, this whole concept that we put forth of that almost every pizza should probably have one of each, if not more. One of my favorite pizzas in the book is the quattro fromagi. Did I say that right?
- [28:16]
A
Yeah, you did great.
- [28:17]
B
Thank you. In the past, I've not been that hyped on for cheese pizza because usually the cheeses all taste the same. But this one is great. You get a real symphony, I'll say, of cheese. Cheesiest symphony. It's like a Rachmaninoff. You know you like it, but you kind of feel a little cheesy for liking it. So I've thought about this a lot. The question is a good one. The caller said, is it better to use fresh or shredded mozzarella? We get into some tricky territory because fresh mozzarella is exactly what it sounds, you know, hopefully days old, very wet cheese. Right. A lot of moisture in there. And that is the traditional cheese for a Neapolitan pizza. But you got to remember, a Neapolitan pizza is traditionally a little soggy. That's just what it is. You need a knife and fork for it. And that's why, because that cheese is letting off so much moisture that it's impacting the crust below it. But you can get low moisture mozzarella, which is an entirely different thing, but it's not shredded crucially, credibly. I would not recommend pre shredded cheese, but you get low moisture. Whole milk mozzarella is our recommendation for your. Your base layer of pizza that will give you lots of meltability, lots of good flavor, lots of cheese pull.
- [29:34]
A
Will you tell people why you don't recommend pre shredded mozzarella? I'm sure there are a lot of people that are like, it's so convenient. There's bags of what's marketed as pizza cheese right there in my supermarket.
- [29:43]
B
Yeah. And shredding mozzarella can be a little bit annoying. But that cheese that has been pre shredded has been treated with something like either cornstarch or something like it to keep it separate in the bag. And that prevents it from melting. Well, it's also like cutting an apple. When you cut an apple, the clock starts ticking. Those slices are going to oxidize. That's why nobody wants a platter of cut fruit. Don't send me one of those, like fruit bouquets. Fruit bouquets. No, that's disgusting. The fruit starts to degrade the minute you cut it. So you want to cut it as close as possible. To the time you're going to eat it. Same applies for cheese. The minute air hits that cheese, it's going to start drying out and degrade. So cheese that has been shredded before you buy it typically doesn't melt as well. It just doesn't taste as good because it's just, you know, it sort of speeds up the aging process. So the minute you shred it. And shredding is really not that big of a deal. If you spray your little. I'm having trouble finding my words.
- [30:44]
A
Yeah, you spray your box grater with some, like, pan spray.
- [30:47]
B
This is why I'm here for you.
- [30:48]
A
I'm here for you.
- [30:49]
B
That's actually a good box grater.
- [30:52]
A
Unshredded, low moisture whole milk mozzarella is your base layer. I told people, I warned them that you'd spent years thinking about this. So it's a long answer. But now talk about cheese number two.
- [31:03]
B
Shredded low moisture mozzarella. Whole milk is there for texture. That's really a texture cheese. I think you always want to add a flavor cheese to that. So to me, that's grated parm. We heard in the interview with Molly and Sarah how they approached cheese. There were three ch. And the parm is really there for that umami. It's there for the salt. They put it under the mozzarella so that it doesn't burn in the oven. In the pizza book, sometimes we put parm on top of the pizza before it goes in the oven. More likely we do a layer of it after it comes out. Because what's better than freshly grated parmesan.
- [31:43]
A
Or like pecorino Romano?
- [31:44]
B
Pecorino, yeah.
- [31:45]
A
Which, like. Because then it's, I think that salty cheese, like it hits your. Your palate first, right? Like you're getting that hit of sort of salty umami ness. I think that, I think that's a pro tip. And I think, you know, those hard grating cheeses are probably the most common ones, but they're certainly not the only ones. You could mess around with an aged asiago smoked cheese or blue cheese. That could go on. And the only thing I will add to this, because I think you're spot on, is that I love the flavor and the texture of a fresh buffalo milk mozzarella or burrata, you know, something like that. And if you want to add those to your pizza, you gotta do it after the bake. Bake your pizza with some of that low moisture whole milk mozzarella on it. And when it comes out of the oven, if you wanted to like you know, break open a ball of brought on your pizza or add a little bit of buffalo milk mozzarella. That would be a nice time to do it. But then you're not gonna sog out your pie cause that is the worst.
- [32:41]
B
So to recap, Cliff notes, when you're thinking about cheeses, it does pay to think about cheeses in several categories. Cheese that goes on before the bake, cheese that goes on after, cheese that goes on for flavor and cheese that goes on for texture. Just keep those things in mind. You can't lose. What's that expression that from that Full.
- [33:01]
A
Hearts, clear eyes, can't lose.
- [33:04]
B
Full milk mozzarella, freshly graded parm. Can't lose. I don't know. It's not working.
- [33:12]
A
Well, there's our brief answer to that question. We did spend a lot of time thinking about it. So I'm glad that we have the answer for you.
- [33:18]
B
Other answer is just get the book. Just buy the book explains all Book.
- [33:22]
A
A pizza out pre order now wherever fine books are sold. Let's go to our next question.
- [33:29]
E
I'm curious, should I be making my own pizza sauce or is store bought just as good as and if I am using store bought, is there anything I can do to jazz it up to make it a little bit better? Thanks so much.
- [33:43]
A
Well, it depends which I know is an annoying answer. There are plenty of pizzas that rely on a no cook sauce, which is basically a can of good quality whole tomatoes blitzed up in your blender food processor or with an immersion blender seasoned with salt, maybe a little sugar. If that's the sauce that you're looking for, a very fresh no cook sauce, then I think you should make it yourself because that's pretty easy. Pizza sauce, traditionally, you know, jarred pizza sauce is a more marinara like sauce. Chances are good it will have garlic, some sort of dry Italian spice blend. Chances are very good it will have sugar in it. And that doesn't mean it's bad. It just is a different sort of thing. You know, in full disclosure, on a weeknight when I want to make pizza and I notice a half jar of of marinara sauce in my fridge, I will use it because it's fine. Is it going to be slightly different? Yes. But I think it's fine to use what's on hand. I typically don't buy pizza sauce because it's kind of a single use product. I'm not going to put pizza sauce on spaghetti. I would put a jarred marinara on both pasta and pizza. I Don't have any rules about it. If you have a pizza sauce you love, that's a fine thing to do. But it is, I mean, mean, it's easy to make pizza sauce at home and you can store it in your freezer. Like a cooked sauce can just be portioned out and put in the freezer. So, you know, you might find yourself doing that once a month and making a bunch. I don't think that's a huge task. But, you know, whatever gets you. You're already making homemade pizza, so whatever streamlines that exercise for you and makes it doable for you, I think is great.
- [35:22]
B
I totally agree with that. I personally have never bought pizza sauce because I just do that no cook sauce. For anybody out there who likes to make pizza at home. I think it is worth trying the no cook pizza sauce once just to see how easy it is. And it probably is going to save you some money too, because a can of good tomatoes is probably going to get you more sauce for less money than a jar of pizza sauce. And you might like it better. And you know, what you get in homemade sauce is more control. You can, you know, you can reduce it to how you like it, you can season it to how you like it, you know, jazz up a jar of pizza sauce, too. But that begs the question for me, if you're going to jazz up jarred sauce, is it worth it then just to like, do the no cook pizza sauce and jazz add up to? So I totally agree with you. Whatever people want. And of course, there's this particular flavor to jarred pizza sauce that a lot of people love. I would challenge you on that. It's easier than you think.
- [36:13]
A
I think that's true. And the only other sort of final note that I will say is if you are going to try the no cook sauce, the quality of your tomatoes then becomes very important. You, you might taste around some brands and just see, because I think not all canned tomatoes are created equal. In writing the pizza book, we like the whole peeled tomatoes and we like the Bianco di Napoli tomatoes, which are admittedly a little harder to find, but are a great product. Those are the brands that we like. But taste them. Because some canned tomatoes can taste tinnier than others. Some are made with less ripe tomatoes, so there's some variability there. Well, the quality is good and you can find them in most places, so that's a pro. And they're relatively affordable. So I hope that helps you, pizza maker. Have fun out there.
- [36:59]
B
Well, this is a special episode and one of the ways that it's special is that, Jessica, we're not getting a Jess opinion this week.
- [37:07]
A
I mean, there's always a Jess opinion running in the background, right? It's like, you know, there's something if you dig hard enough. But yes.
- [37:14]
B
Oh, I don't think you have to dig that hard. I think you've given a few already.
- [37:16]
A
I'm curious. In lieu of a Jess opinion, I'm just gonna ask you what you are planning to bake this week.
- [37:23]
B
It's a great question. And pizza is on the brain. Of course. I've been the recipe of the year pizza this week. I'm also going to mix it up, do something sort of pizza ish. It's the delicata squash galette with cheese and herbs on the side. I will admit to being a delicata squash fiend. It's my favorite squash. I love a honey nut too. I just love squash. I love winter and fall squash, summer squash. I mean, it's, it's, it's fancy.
- [37:49]
A
It's a different animal.
- [37:50]
B
It's a different animal thing. But, you know, winter squash really has my heart and I love doing it. Basically. I love little pizza type thing with it. It's basically pie and pizza. Had a child, it would be this galette with delicata squash. Anyway, I'm excited to make this delicata squash. Any way I can eat delicata squash.
- [38:07]
A
I think this recipe is a sleeper hit. Anytime it comes up in a meeting, people are like, oh, I love that recipe. People don't always think of King Arthur for savory recipes. They think about it for bread or sweets. But we have a lot of recipes that live in this in between space, like savory dinner things that have a baked element. And this is a really good one.
- [38:26]
B
Yeah, it's fun to bake for dinner, which is what you do when you make pizza. But there are other ways to do it as well.
- [38:31]
A
Totally.
- [38:32]
B
So what are you baking for dinner this week or are you baking for dessert?
- [38:35]
A
Well, you know, I know by the calendar that the days are getting longer, but I'm not feeling it or seeing it yet. It's cold, it's dark, which is a great time to bake. Over the last year, I was watching our test kitchen work on these ultimate flaky biscuits. There was a lot of conversation about a recipe we were missing on our site for really statuesque pull apart very flaky bronzed biscuits. Our test kitchen set to work on that. These are made with self rising flour, the sour cream and butter and they really just stand nice and tall. To your question of are you baking for breakfast? Are you baking for dinner? They can run the gamut. I usually bake them to accompany soup or something. I feel like having a homemade biscuit sort of jazzes up even, you know, the most sort of quotidian soup. And then, you know, we'll usually have a few leftover that you can split toast and slather jam on the next day. I'm gonna make those ultimate flaky biscuits and I encourage anyone listening to give that recipe a shot because they're very good.
- [39:36]
B
They are very good. And I know you're a fan of tandem biscuits because you know your local biscuit bakery. These taste kind of tandem. Ish. What may be interesting to listeners is that this recipe for extra flaky biscuits was the runner up when we were deciding what recipe of the year was it going to be. So the puff crust pizza one. But we decided, oh, let's just develop that extra flaky biscuit.
- [39:59]
A
Anyway, I forgot that early in the year there was a vote taken about whether the recipe of the year should be a pizza or a biscuit. I voted for biscuit. I was outvoted. I guess I don't have a lot of clout, but I'm getting the biscuits anyway, so it all works out.
- [40:15]
B
I think that every vote counted the same. There were some votes where your vote counts more, counts double, but not in that one.
- [40:22]
A
Always a pleasure to talk to you, David. This is a bonus episode, which means we're taking a little break, but we're gonna be back with season three this spring, another 10 episodes. And I'm excited to hear the response to this flaky puff crust pizza because I think people are gonna be very into it. Thank you for tuning in and joining us here on the podcast Things Bakers Know. We'll see you in the spring.
- [40:46]
B
Remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcast so you know when the next season drops.
- [40:55]
A
And leave us a review while you're there. Or better yet, share this episode with a friend.
- [41:00]
B
And in the meantime, people, don't forget, follow the recipe of the year. Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive.
- [41:08]
A
Produced by me, David Samarkin and me, Jessica Battolano.
- [41:12]
B
Rossi Anastopoulo is our senior producer, Chad Chanay is our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus, Bernard McGollar.
- [41:20]
A
Thanks again to Sarah Jampel and Molly Marzalek. Kelly, our beloved colleagues from the King Arthur Test kitchen for joining us on today's episode, things Bakers Know is a.
- [41:30]
B
King Arthur Baking Company podcast.