Reinventing Pizza for 2026

Episode Transcript

Jessica: This season is brought to you by Plugra butter, a premium European style butter made using a slow churn process. Look for Plugra wherever fine butters are sold. 

David: I absolutely understand not wanting to change. I hate change. So if you're like me and you wanna continue proofing your yeast, fine, go for it. But for the rest of us, you don't need to worry about it.  

Jessica: From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers Know. I'm Jessica Battilana, King Arthur's staff editor. 

David: And I'm David Tamarkin, editorial director at King Arthur Baking, 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. 

Jessica: Take a breath. 

David: It's our recipe of the year. 

Jessica: Oh yes. I love our recipe of the year. 

David: 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. 

Jessica: It's gonna change your life. 

David: It's gonna change your life. 

It's sort of like the Pantone color of the year. 

Jessica: Well, I, you know, even before I started 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. 

David: Gosh. Yeah, before we got to talk every day.  

Jessica: I mean, before 

David: I blocked that out. 

Jessica: Yeah. 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 around it. 

David: Yes. And some previous recipes of the year — 'cause you're about to tell everyone what — 

Jessica: Oh, I get to tell them. Oh, okay. Okay. 

David: I'm gonna do a drum roll on my desk and you're gonna 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? 

Jessica: We are in 2026.  

David: Okay, great. And I, I have other questions of that sort, but I'm gonna wait till after the podcasts, 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. 

Jessica: That one's really good. 

David: And now, can you hear this? Drum roll 

Jessica: I, I can, I can hear the drummer. I'm gonna do it too, just to really drive it home. Uh, this year it is a Flaky Puff Crust Pizza! 

David: Tada. 

Jessica: Tada. 

David: And I've already made this recipe a dozen times. 

Jessica: Have you really? That's amazing. 

David: 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 can, let me ask you, what the heck is flaky puff crust pizza? 

Jessica: 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 Philip on this pizza book for a number of years. That's coming out in April of this year, pretty soon. 

David: Right around the corner. 

Jessica: 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? 

David: I'm really pushing that Midwest agenda. 

Jessica: 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. Um, and you know, there's been a lot of work in the test kitchen, and it's 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 incorporated or a, 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. 

David: Yeah. Every year we knock around a couple categories of recipe of the year. Is it gonna be a brownie? Is it gonna be a biscuit? Is it gonna be a 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. 

Jessica: It does start like, I mean, it basically starts in February, like for the next year. So we're gonna start to think about recipe of the year 2027 like I mean, probably tomorrow. 

David: 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, are more into it now. 

They're more aware of it. Two bakers in our test kitchen who worked on this pizza, Sarah Jampel and Molly Marzalek-Kelly, 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 gonna say undercarriage, really crispy bottom, a truly flaky puffy crust. And the, I mean, it, the, the side view on this thing, it's like looking at the ocean waves, waves of crust in and in and out and up and down. 

Jessica: 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 outta 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. Um, also what I really like about this, I, 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, it's made in a 18 by 13, you know, rimmed baking sheet. So, you know, more pizza, more party is what I say. 

David: That's the other benefit of a — 

Jessica: I've ever said that, but ... 

David: 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. Um, and this is a great pizza party pizza. 

Jessica: 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. Um, which is another reason this is nice. And also like, because it is rich, it has that butter in it, like it feels very, um, 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, a very robust discussion about how to reheat pizza. And that's when I blew your mind. 

David: Oh my God. I’ve thought about it every day 

Jessica: 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, 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 

David: Yeah. 

Jessica: Worked great.  

David: As opposed to your way, which is slamming the pizza cheese side down in a hot skillet.  

Jessica: Yeah. 

David: And, and pretending that that works. 

Jessica: I didn't get as much, you know, I didn't hear as much from people as I would've thought about that. Maybe it wasn't as provocative as I thought. 

David: Everybody's like, oh my gosh, I love melted cheese, I love fondue. I'm gonna do this. Um, 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 developer, 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. 

Jessica: 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. 

David: Yeah, so Sarah Jampel and Molly Marzalek-Kelly are two bakers in the King Arthur test kitchen. Let's hear our conversation with them. Molly, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us again. It's a pleasure to have you. Look, my first question for you may be simple, may be hard. Are you sick of pizza yet? Is it possible to be sick of pizza and are you sick of it yet? 

Molly: Never sick of pizza. No. 

David: Honestly, that is surprising to me because you made how many pizzas, how many versions of this pizza in the test kitchen? 

Molly: Are we talking running total of pizzas? 

David: Yes. 

Molly: Um, Sarah and I just talked about this earlier this week, and we think we're up definitely upwards of 70. Probably closing in on 100. 

David: Yeah. Okay, great. My God, that's a lot. And that, and to, for listeners, that is in a period of about six months. 

Sarah: So yeah, started in March and now it's October, so six to seven months. 

David: Yeah. Six to seven months, you know, a hundred 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, I know because I'm one of the people who set forth the challenge. Who, 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? 

Sarah: I would say from a really roundabout, sort of messy beginning, um, 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 people with pizza ovens would make. Um, 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, 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, what can be compelling about it, but what, how can we also make it accessible? Um, 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, it's honestly sort of laughable. I mean, I was excited about them in the moment and I felt like, woo, this is promising. 

But when I think back about what to what we were doing, it was crazy. Um, 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. Um, 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 gonna 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. 

David: And one of your, one of these early experiments that you now look back on with extreme shame is, uh, was, uh, one of them was a, like a baking soda pizza. Right. Am I remembering that correctly? Molly? 

Molly: Baking powder. Yes. That was when we were holding really strongly onto the idea of could we do great pizza in one hour? 

David: Yeah. 

Molly: So, 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, we didn't go farther down that path. 

David: I, I tasted that pizza. It was interesting. I mean, I liked it, but I just, I think the conversation I remember, which is I think the conversation we have around a lot of our recipes is, is the benefit of the recipe gonna be that it's fast, or is the benefit gonna be, it's gonna be the absolute best pizza you've ever tasted? 

You know? 

Sarah: 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 on a weeknight, how long can it take? And she said, 15 minutes. And I was like, oh. Oh, okay. This is a different level. 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. 

David: I wanna talk about cheese because there was a real cheese journey with this pizza. Um, 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 Sarah, I want 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. 

Molly: I don't have the hot take on Parmesan that Sarah does. Um, so the two types of mozzarella. Uh, it goes a little something like this, like the graded mozzarella that goes down first. Well, not for, technically not first. It's the second cheese that goes down is the graded mozzarella. We recommend whole milk for that, so really buy a block of whole milk mozz and then shred that yourself. 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. Um, so that's kind of like the cheese that gives you, it's, the recipe calls for eight ounces. You get good coverage across the whole pie with that. And then we call for four ounces of fresh cubed mozzarella. 

Now the cubed mozzarella started as thinly sliced mozzarella, but we had some strong feelings about that during a tasting. So we went from slice to cubed because smaller portions still melts beautifully. Um, gives the pizza a really nice visual appearance, 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, it, it can happen of course, but that's not the, that's not the focus. 

David: Not every pizza has to be a cheese pull. 

Molly: You know, it doesn't, it doesn't. 

David: That's a hot, that's a Jess-opinion right there. Um. 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. 

Sarah: Can I say a few more things about the mozzarella first? 

David: Absolutely. 

Sarah: One descriptor of food that we've come to use a lot in the test kitchen that I love is helmet.  

David: I've never heard this. 

Molly: With like crumbs on a crumb cake. Yeah. 

Sarah: 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. There's 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.  

David: 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 your doing, Sarah. So tell us what, how you feel about parm on pizza. 

Sarah: No, this was Molly's idea. It was my opinion and Molly's execution.  

David: Oh, okay. 

Sarah: Just a good example of like how this collaboration works so beautifully. Like someone points out a problem, someone has a solution. Um, we had a tasting, um, that I found, is devastating the right word? It was, I got over it, but it was like us presenting, you know, we had, 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 aged cheese 

David: I do think aged cheese, you know, I have, I have some strong opinions about double cheese on pizza. So yes. fresh and an aged. 

Sarah: In the end, you were right. It was totally valid feedback to, to give. Um, but I feel really strongly about cooked Parmesan cheese. Um, I just think when Parmesan cheese browns, it gets a flavor that is totally different than fresh Parmesan cheese.  

David: And I think it's, it’s 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 then. 

Sarah: There was also some feedback in this meeting that perhaps the pizza was a little low in salt. Um, 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. Um, and so the Parmesan cheese is insulated from the heat of the oven. 

So it does add, like, you know, it adds that aged cheese salinity, but it doesn't brown. Um, so I think. It just adds a little, like, you don't need to know it's there, but it is doing something and you put more on top after as well. 

David: I'm so glad we're talking about this because it really does just help explain to our audience how thoughtful you 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 of 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. 

Jessica: 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 crust to laminated pastries. 

I know you're making a lot of laminated pastries at home, right, David? Well, I mean, but if you were. 

David: I do. Sometimes I try, I do rough puff, I gotta say. But whenever I do, I do like a butter with Plugra’s butterfat, 82% butterfat. And look, if it's good enough for chefs, it's good enough for me, you know? So look for Plugra butter wherever fine butters are sold. 

This episode is brought to you by the number one New York Times bestselling Big Book of Bread, which contains my go-to challah recipe, as well as over a hundred more amazing bread recipes from pickled jalapeno cheddar bread to cacio e pepe rolls. Oh, and by the way, it was co-written by Jessica.  

Jessica: 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 wanna 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 wanna 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. 

David: Of course, if you have a baking question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to our Bakers Hotline via phone, email, or online chat. Just go to kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline. That's kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline or call us (855) 371-2253. That's 2 2 5 3 as in BAKE. 

Jessica: We got more questions today and hopefully we have more answers. Let's hear 'em. 

David: 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 wanna note this caller said, well, first of all, this caller loves the podcast and so this caller can do no wrong. 

Jessica: Caller’s our best friend.  

David: 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 Martin 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. You 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. 

Jessica: Myth busted. 

David: 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 causes us to, you know, wanna 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. 

Jessica: 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 pack of Twizzlers, you could see right away, if it was gonna take effect. 

David: Yeah. It gave them an immediate snack and 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 and 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 wanna change. 

I absolutely understand not wanting to change. I hate change. So if you're like me and you wanna continue proofing your yeast, fine, go for it. But for the rest of us, you don't need to worry about it. 

Jessica: And this is true whether you're using active dry yeast, like the kind that comes in, little packages, you know, the sort of strips. 

David: As the bakers, as we say, ADY. 

Jessica: Oh, wow. Yeah.  

David: Yeah. 

Jessica: Oh wow. You know, so the, whether you're using active dry yeast, ADY or you're using instant yeast, which is the preference of our test kitchen, just throw it in there.  

David: Good. Goodbye. Proofing yeast or not, you're safe either way. 

Jessica: Great question. Should we hear another one? 

David: Yeah, let's do it. Let's bust another myth. 

Jessica: David, 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 comes out in April, but you logged some time. 

David: 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 topping. 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? I'm jumping a little bit ahead here, but the Venn diagram was cheeses for flavor and cheeses for melt-ability. 

So, you know, this whole concept that we put forth, that almost every pizza should probably have one of each, if not more. One of my favorite pizzas in the book is the Quattro Formagi. Did I say that right? 

Jessica: You did great. 

David: Thank you. In the past I've not been that hyped on four cheese pizza because usually the cheeses all taste the same. 

But this one is great. You get a real symphony. 

Jessica: Mm. Mm-hmm.  

David: Dare I say, the cheesiest symphony. It's like a Rachmaninov, 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 gotta 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, 'cause 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 'cause we do not recommend pre-shredded cheese. But you get low moisture whole milk mozzarella is our recommendation for your, base layer of pizza that will give you lots of melt-ability. Lots of good flavor, lots of cheese pull. 

Jessica: 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. 

David: Yeah. And shredding mozzarella can be, a little bit annoying. But that cheese that has been pre-shredded has been treated with something, 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 gonna oxidize, that's why nobody wants a platter of cut fruit. Don't send me, don't send me one of those, like, fruit, 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 gonna start drying out and degrade. 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's sort of speeds up the aging process with the minute you shred it. And shredding is really not that big of a deal. If you spray your little — 

Jessica: Oh yeah. If you spray your box grater with some like pan spray, I'm here for you. 

David: Yes. 

Jessica: That's actually a good tip. 

David: Mm-hmm. 

Jessica: 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. 

David: Shredded low moisture mozzarella whole milk is there for texture. That's really a texture cheese. 

Jessica: Mm-hmm. 

David: I think you always wanna add a flavored cheese. So to me that's grated parm. We heard in the interview with Molly and Sarah how they approached cheese. There were three cheeses on the ROTY pizza 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? 

Jessica: Or like pecorino romano. 

David: Yeah. 

Jessica: Which like, because then it's, I think that salty cheese, like it hits your palate first, right? Like you're getting that hit of sort of salty umaminess. 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 smoked cheese, a blue cheese that could go on. And the only thing I will add to this, 'cause 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 burrata 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.  

David: So to recap. 

Jessica: Cliff notes. 

David: 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? 

Jessica: Full hearts, clear eyes, can't lose. 

David: Full milk mozzarella, freshly grated parm. Can't lose. I don't know. It's not working.  

Jessica: 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.  

David: Other answer is just get the book. 

Jessica: Book of Pizza out April 7th, pre-order now. Wherever fine books are sold. Let's go to our next question. 

David: 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 cooked sauce, then I think you should make it yourself, because that's pretty easy. 

Jessica: Pizza sauce, traditionally 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 marinara sauce in my fridge I will use it, because it's fine. Is it gonna 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 gonna 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, 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. 

David: I totally agree with that. I personally have never bought pizza sauce. 'cause I just do that. No cook sauce for anybody out there who likes to make pizza at home, I do think it is worth trying the no cooked pizza sauce once, just to see how easy it is. And it probably is gonna save you some money too, because a can of good tomatoes is probably gonna 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 gonna jazz up jarred sauce, is it worth it then just to like do the no cooked pizza sauce and jazz add up too. So I totally agree with you. Whatever, whatever people want. And of course there's this particular flavor to jarred pizza sauce that a lot of people love.  

Jessica: I think that's true. And the only other sort of final note that I'll say is if you are going to try the no cook sauce, the quality of your tomatoes then becomes very important. You might taste around some brands and just see, 'cause I think not all canned tomatoes are created equal. In writing the pizza book, we like 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 tinier than others. Some are made with less ripe tomatoes. So there's some variability there. 

Well, the quality's 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. 

David: This is a special episode and one of the ways that it's special is that Jessica, we're not getting your Jess-opinion this week. 

Jessica: 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.  

David: Oh, I don't think you have to dig that hard. I think you've given a few already.  

Jessica: I'm curious in lieu of a Jess-opinion, I'm just gonna ask you what you are planning to bake this week? 

David: It's a great question and pizza is on the brain.  

Of course, I've been making the recipe of the year pizza this week. I'm also gonna mix it up, do something sort of pizza-ish, is the delicata squash galette with cheese and herbs on the site. I will admit to being a delicata squash fiend. It's my favorite squash. I love a honeynut too. I just love squash. I love winter and fall squash. Summer squash, I mean. It's, it's, it's, it's fine. It's a different thing. But, you know, winter squash really has my heart and I love doing it basically a 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, any way I can eat delicata squash. 

Jessica: 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 us 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. 

David: 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,  

Jessica: Totally. 

David: So what are you baking for dinner this week? Or are you baking for dessert? 

Jessica: 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, 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 jazzed up even, you know, the most sort of quaotidian 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. 

David: They are very good and I know you're a fan of Tandem Biscuits 'cause, 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 going to be. 

So the puff crust pizza one, but we decided, let's just develop that extra flaky biscuit anyway, 

Jessica: 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. 

David: I think that every vote counted the same. There were some votes where your vote counts more. 

Jessica: Counts double. 

David: But not in that one. 

Jessica: 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. 

David: Remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts so you know when the next season drops. 

Jessica: And leave us a review while you're there, or better yet, share this episode with a friend. 

David: In the meantime, people don't forget, follow the recipe of the year. 

Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive produced by me, David Tamarkin, and me, Jessica Battilana  

Rossi Anastopuolo is our senior producer. Chad Chenail is our producer, and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala. 

Jessica: Thanks again to Sarah Jampel and Molly Marzalek-Kelley, our beloved colleagues from the King Arthur Test Kitchen for joining us on today's episode. 

David: Things Bakers Know is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast.