The time has come once again to offend the nonnas and wops. We’re diving into pizza now. I’ve cooked my fair share of pizzas, and this square pan pizza is by far the easiest, save Elio’s, to make, perfect for a sunday afternoon while you watch the Iggles nearly choke away a sure win to the Reverse Cowgirls. While there is nothing wrong with a New York-style thin crust round pizza, the dough is easier to work with in a square pan. One of the most devastating trade-offs in pizza revolves around dough hydration. A high hydration dough can get extremely sticky and become difficult for us novices to work with; however, higher hydration means lighter and crispier crust. A stand mixer would make quick work of a wetter dough, but Danny doesn’t want to shell out $349 when his pair of soft feminine hands can do most of the work.

I started with a pretty standard dough. Flour, olive oil, salt, yeast, and water. About a cup and a half of flour and a half packet of yeast if you care about recipe amounts. Then I added enough water to make a cohesive dough and kneaded that for about 5-10 minutes. If the dough starts sticking too much to the work surface, add a bit of flour to the top, scrape the dough ball off the table with a bench scraper or spatula, and keep going until you have a stretchy dough ball. Transfer to an oiled bowl and cover.

Time to expose a baking secret. Normally at this point, the recipe author would say something like “let the dough rise until doubled in size.” But that is utter horseshit. Do you actually remember the original size? Can you properly estimate the doubling of size in a hemispherical bowl? Didn’t think so. So just let it rest as long as you feel like it or as long as convenient. One hour is fine; six hours is also fine. Nothing matters. I ended up giving the dough another quick knead after about four hours just to get some extra gluten development and check on the dough hydration.

While the dough was proofing, it was sauce time. Because I had one, I diced a small red bell pepper along with a yellow onion. Once sauteed, I added tomato paste and stirred until slightly caramelized. In went anchovy paste, fresh oregano, a can of crushed tomatoes, black pepper, a splash of balsamic vinegar, and parmesan cheese. When the sauce was reducing, move the dough from the bowl into an oiled square pan, stretching the dough into the corners. It will spring back on you, but do what you can. Then cover the dough with plastic wrap and let rest again so the dough can relax.

Once your sauce is done, stretch the dough into the corners once again, top with the sauce, and add fresh mozzarella and grated parmesan. I baked at my toaster oven’s highest setting of 450F, and the cooking took about 15-20 minutes. I let it cool in the pan briefly before transferring to a cutting board and cutting pieces to match the mootz circles. Here is the final product before and after baking:

What I like about this pizza is that the crust is a cross between a pizza dough and focaccia in that it is light and fluffy, but also crisp on the edges due to the oiled pan and high oven temperature. One suggestion to improve this would be to work towards functionality on the cheese versus aesthetics. The large mozzarella slices provided a good stretch, but were strong enough to pull off the entire cheese puck in one piece. While it looks nice, a thinner slice of cheese or grating or dicing the cheese would make this less cumbersome to eat. I topped my slices with basil chiffonade because I’m a pompous fuck, but any toppings or garnishes are up to you.

I recommend giving this a try. If you’re going to use a prepared sauce or one you have already made, most of the required time to make this is idle time.

Do you have a favorite food you want me to make? Please provide suggestions below or contact me here.