I grew up in the chicago area, and a staple in college was the deep dish stuffed pizza. Now I live elsewhere, and it's harder to find. Plus, the whole challenge of making your own is hard to resist. I've been happy enough with varios thin crust pizzas, but the other day on a whim searched on recipezaar for the ubiquitous stuffed pizza.... and I found it!

http://www.recipezaar.com/88044

The main thing I didn't know was the order of ingredients and crust. Here it was---crust, fillings (cheese plus "toppings") followed by another crust, and topped with the sauce. It really works. Since then I've played around with crusts. I've been happiest so far with the BBA pizza napolean crust, which is thin and stretchy. I use a bit of WW flour for flavor/color/nutrition. I've found about 10-11 ounces for the bottom crust, and 5-6 for the top is about right. I'm using my cast iron skillet for the pan, which is a little smaller than the original recipe calls for, but works just great. I'm lucky to still have homemade home grown sauce from last summer, which helps a lot :)

I've been debating whether to prick the top crust or not--tonight I didn't and got a BIG bubble, so I think I'd recommend it.  This week was just pepperoni/mushroom, but I can vouch for the spinach as well--it's very good and seemed to make for a fuller filling after baking.  Tonight's was a bit thinner but tasty anyway...

Yesterday's dinner!

I used Pain la Ancienne formula for the dough ( a simple overnight retarded flour, water, yeast, salt dough), baked in a 550F oven for 8-9 minutes on tiles.

A 'Mikey special', this one is ( in order of construction), crushed tomatoes, italian spices, fresh garlic, mozarella cheese, gorgonzola cheese, feta cheese, 3 types of olives ( oil cured, green, and black), mushrooms, red onions, and some more mozzarella to hold it all together. This was great, sometimes my specials are a bit wet and thick but this one came out just perfect since I used a restraint with the amount of each ingredient for a change.

Cheese

Nothing special here, just crushed tomatoes, italian spices, garlic powder, mozzarella, romano, parmesan. So good though :-)

Mike in New Jersey

I used the basic no-knead recipe from www.artisanbreadinfive.com for the crust, and topped it with caramelized onions and mushrooms.

How I went about it...

I made Leader's Pierre-nury rustic rye dough. I like the dough so much, I'm experimenting again, well....

After following all the directions, carefully laid out the dough before me. I had just prepared all my ingredients:

Hey, I was wondering if anyone has tried Peter Reinhart's Chicago Deep dish? I was wondering if you should use a deep dish pan or not, and if so what size. I want to try it but I don't have a deep dish pan and wasn't sure if I could do it. Also if you have tried it can you give me some recommendations and tips and it. Photos are always welcomed as well. I love his other pizzas. I'm working on getting a thicker/chewier crust for the New-York Style, but maybe I'll try the Pizza Americana since it has milk and that always helps thicken a bit. Thanks for any informaiton.

My wife loves Panera Crispani. What kind of flatbread should I make to mimic theirs?