I had never made a cast iron skillet pizza before and wanted to use my new stand mixer. I was incredibly surprised how good this came out. I’ll probably never order pizza again and it only costs $3.47 per pizza! The crust is like the pan pizzas from the Pizza Hut of the '90s, my favorite!
I baked the pizza in my 11" skillet at 450F for around 20 min. After checking the bottom crust I cooked 5 more minutes on the stove, medium heat.
I used this recipe for the dough.
Dough (makes two balls)
- 4.25 cups Bread Flour = $0.93
- 2.25 tsp Rapid-rise Yeast = $1.00
- 1.5 tsp Salt = $0.02
- 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil = $0.36
- 1.75 cup Warm Water = Free
Total = $1.16 ($2.31 for two dough balls)
Toppings
- 3 tbsp Pizza Sauce = $0.27
- 1.5 cup Mozzarella Cheese = $1.42
- 1 oz Pepperoni = $0.47
- 1 Jalapeno Pepper = $0.15
Total = $2.31
Total for everything = $3.47 per pizza.
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Wow you nailed it, it looks amazing and thanks for the breakdown!
Thanks, I didn’t expect it to come out nearly as tasty as it did.
Lovely looking pie! I’ve been doing cast iron pizzas for some time now. You can cut your cooking time down by 10-15 min if you do the following:
Start cooking on stove: burner on high for ~4-5 min to set the dough. When you first turn the burner on, also turn on the broiler.
Toss it under the broiler for another ~5min or until your cheese crisps up just the way you like it.
The higher heat of the stove and broiler (even though it’s not at the same time) mimics the super hot pizza ovens a bit better (imo).
Great looking pie!
Another good recipe with ingredients in volumetric and gram measurements is here: https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-pan-pizza-recipe
His quantities are for 2x 10-inch skillets. A 12-inch skillet is roughly 44% larger area, so I scale it up 1.44x for two 12-inch pizzas. Or more often half that, 0.72x for a single pizza. This is where grams on a scale make things easier and more reliable.
I particularly like how much detail Kenji goes into on the procedure and the impact of different changes to the approach. It can help with troubleshooting problems, or just with tweaking to make a good pizza even better next time.
Hell yeah!!! Homemade pizza is a classic! This looks great!
Thank you. I didn’t expect it to come out so delicious on my first go. I’ll for sure keep making this in the future. One bite and I was back in Pizza Hut with those stained glass light fixtures, the salad bar, and those red plastic cups.
My price is $2.77 not including toppings. Or local meat store (don’t call it a butcher) frequently has pounds of sliced pepperoni for $3. I vacuum seal it in smaller bags and it works out to maybe 25 cents per pizza.
I got my flower cost almost in half by using Walmart brand flour. I do have to spend a little bit more on mozzarella. Walmart has 8 oz for $2 but it’s low moisture which doesn’t brown right. They have a higher quality high moisture version for another dollar.
Oh for sure I could get the price down further, but I did a quick lookup of all the ingredients in quantities I normally buy and from local stores.
I always thought you’re supposed to use low moisture mozzarella for pizza, no?
In my experience it doesn’t brown right. It just melts. No cispy golden anything. And it doesn’t pull. It’s slides.
If it’s pre-shredded, the anti-caking additive may be the problem. It’s typically coated in moisture absorbing cellulose. When it melts that causes the problem you describe. Using higher moisture can overcome that somewhat, but shredding your own will come out better and it only takes a couple of minutes.
In my area low moisture chunk mozz is as cheap or cheaper than pre-shreds (~$3.75 per lb) and it won’t do this.
Galbani “Italian style” whole milk “classic melt & stretch” is my favorite for pizza. Nicer flavor and texture than the cheaper options. It’s $5 per lb but regularly goes on sale for less.
I buy the block and shred my own.
Interesting. I read a paper one time on the salting step, stretching/pulling the curd, and the proportions of skim milk content (in part skim cheese), as well as handling after production having some impacts on this. It’s why I hunt out my one favorite cheese that always behaves like I expect.
On the left of skim milk low moisture. Edges are burnt but center has no browning. On the right is higher moisture. Even browning with no burnt edges.
And by high moisture I mean in comparison to the cheddar like block of low moisture. Not the stuff swimming on juice.
Makes sense. The one on the left is probably particularly crap. Higher salt content, more skim milk % than better quality part-skim cheeses.
Like you said, you can get a lot of info from the feel. I think those cheaper cheeses really over salt early, and work the curds harder to expell as much whey as possible to get the cheapest product and longest shelf life. And they feel rock hard.
There is a store near me with a house brand LMPS mozz that has the opposite problem. It feels soft, but it doesn’t have the right pulled texture of real mozz. So it melts, but kinda in a puddle, and it breaks well before it browns.
The one on the right doesn’t say low moisture, but I think based on the nutritional information it would still be that. It’s the same calories/gram, fat, protein and salt as the 2 brands I use, and they are both marked low moisture. Maybe Walmart figures they’ve given low moisture cheese a bad reputation so they don’t want to call it out on the whole milk cheese package.
This is whats gonna make me buy a cast iron instead of a stainless essential pan
Why not both? I primarily use cast, but if something is acidic or eggs I’ll use stateless.
Kitchen space mainly, economics second. Ill probably grab some enameled additionally once I can get some more shelf space.
My wife and I have been making our own pizza’s for awhile now. It’s not as hard as people think. Ya make enough dough for 2 pizzas every Sunday and just put 'em in your fridge and have two pizza nights a week!.
How can you go wrong with Jalapeños on there!
It looks awesome to me. Not much of a pepper eater (texture not flavor). I would enjoy the pepper flavor on it. Had banana peppers, not jalapeno yet. Might try that…
The crust is really the star here. I was surprised how good such a simple crust could be.
This deserves a crosspost over to [email protected] my friend, that looks absolutely incredible
Killer pie. I do a very similar one, but slower ferment.
That’s really what they’re charging you for a bit of yeast though? I’ve paid less for brewing yeast!
I just priced out what a few teaspoons of Fleischmann’s would cost. I could definitely find it cheaper if I looked.
Homemade pizza/pasta sauce recipe (100% better than store bought) :
Ingredients:
- 1 can of tomato pulp (Polpa Mutti is ma favorite)
- 1 onion, finely diced
- 1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
- dried herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary mainly)
- Fresh basil leaves, cut into thin strips
- A pinch of sugar (optional if too acidic)
Instructions:
- Sauté the onions in olive oil with a bit of salt (~5-10 min). Deglaze with a bit of water if they start to grill.
- Once browned and soft, add crushed garlic, tomato pulp and herbs
- Slowly cook on low heat until almost dried (~1/2h to 1h)
- Optional: add a couple spoons of pasta water to rehydrate it
- Adjust seasoning (salt, pepper, suger if needed)
- Add basil leaves just before serving
Personally my herb preferences are marjoram, oregano and basil. Lots of people forget about marjoram but it’s a really great herb for tomato sauce.
Interesting. I’m definitely gonna try this. I make skillet things all the time and am sick of ordering pizza.
Please be merciful to vulnerable individuals that are in your power not to murder.
