My deep-dish pizza skills are all thanks to Cook’s Illustrated…without them, I’d have had no clue how to go about making this at home. The recipe I’m going to share turns out pizzas that are very similar to the deep dish type that you’d get at Pizza Hut.
Cook’s original recipe uses the food processor to mix the dough, but I get very annoyed whenever I try to use that instead of my stand mixer(also, my food processor sounds a little wheezy when I try to make it mix stiff yeast dough). So, I do this in my stand mixer, and I just finish up the kneading on the countertop.
Also, their recipe calls for a large deep dish pan. Fortunately for me(since I don’t own one of those!), they also included directions for using two 9-inch cake pans instead. My cake pans are nothing special, but they’ve been working just fine, and I’m thrilled that I don’t have to buy(and store) an enormous deep dish pan.
It’s best to have a pizza stone for this recipe, but if you don’t, never fear…there is a workaround in the recipe. 
A more condensed version of this recipe(more suitable for printing) is here.
Deep Dish Pizza
Ingredients
1 medium baking potato (about 9 ounces), peeled and quartered
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 3/4 teaspoons table salt
tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, and whatever toppings you desire
Heat 1 quart of water to boiling. Add the potato, and cook for 10-15 minutes, or until tender.
When potato is cool, grate on the large holes of a box grater. Measure 1 cup of lightly packed potato(save any extra for another purpose).
Combine 3 cups of flour, yeast, and salt in a mixer bowl.
Add warm water and two tablespoons oil(the rest is for oiling the pans), and beat for 1 minute. Add grated potato and beat for another 2-3 minutes. Add enough remaining flour to make a manageable dough.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for 2-3 minutes, or until smooth and elastic, adding more flour as necessary to keep the dough from sticking. Place dough in a bowl, cover with a wet tea towel, and let rise in a warm place for one hour.
Pour two tablespoons of oil into each of two round 9 inch cake pans. Tilt the pans to ensure even oil coverage.
Punch dough down and divide in half. Press each half into a 9 inch round, and gently place into the oiled pans. Cook’s says to let the dough rest for 10 minutes and then pat the dough up the sides of the pan. I have never been able to do this successfully(the oil makes the dough slide right back down!), but the pizzas have been fine. I always try(see below), but the dough just ends up looking sort of messy.
Cover the dough with a wet tea towel, and let it rise for 30 minutes, or until soft and puffy. Meanwhile, place a pizza stone on the lower rack of the oven and heat the oven to 425 degrees. If you don’t have a pizza stone, you can instead place a rimless baking sheet on the lower rack of the oven.
When the crusts have risen, poke them all over with a fork, and place them in the oven on top of the pizza stone or baking sheet, and bake for 5-10 minutes(I usually do 10 minutes), or until lightly browned. This will help the dough to develop some structure so that the toppings won’t make it fall and go flat.
Take the pizzas out of the oven and add tomato sauce, cheese, and desired toppings. Bake on pizza stone or inverted baking sheet for another 10-15 minutes or until cheese melts. I sometimes move the pizza stone to the middle rack of the oven for this, because I have problems with my crust getting too brown if I leave it near the bottom of the oven(my oven tends to be hotter at the bottom than at the top).
Move the pizzas to the top rack of the oven and bake for 5 minutes, or until cheese turns spotty brown. Use a knife to loosen the pizzas from the pans, and turn out onto a cutting board. Cut into wedges and serve.
Excuse the poor lighting on this picture(can you tell I lost my natural light about halfway through the pizza-making process? Summetime is SO much better for taking pictures of dinner recipes!)…I just wanted to include this so that you can see the nice crispy crust this recipe produces. It really does taste just like the deep dish pizza I’ve had at pizza restaurants.
Happy pizza making!
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Kristen, oh dear. Now I’m craving pizza like crazy. I am going to try this. I don’t know when, but I will
YUM! I must get a mixer asap!
Kristen, having thought about this I have a question for you. I have no idea when/if I would be able to afford a stand mixer. Does making your own dough work just as well (or, sorta well) with a hand mixer?
Shana, do you have a food processor? If you do, you can just follow the basic directions, except that you’ll only need to process the dough for maybe a minute(the food processor is faster than the mixer).
Or, you could mix it well by hand and then knead it for five minutes or so. Just make sure your potato is well cooked so that hand-kneading will distribute it well in the dough.
This looks too yummy to put off trying…it is totally on the menu for dinner tomorrow….
Shana~ I have had great success with making bread/yeast doughs completely by hand…it’s messy and a bit of a work-out but totally doable! I have only had my stand mixer for about a year and always mixed everything by hand before that.
Off topic, nothing about pizza (but it does look extremely tasty!); I’m relatively new to this attempt to live frugally. Okay, my 2 teenage boys haven’t changed size in a year or so and have tons and tons of church polos and t-shirts for spring and summer left over, so all they’re getting this year is a pair of long khakis, a couple cargo shorts in a neutral color and some new sneakers and maybe swim trunks. My question is, how much is really enough?I’m looking at my daughters’ closets and man, do they have a lot of too small clothes, way too much stuff. My girls have totally outgrown last summer’s clothes and have different body types (one is tall and skinny, the other is shorter and well I won’t say it, but you can guess, so hand me downs to the younger is out). How many outfits do you budget in for each child, or do you just pick a set money amount and they get what they get? Please help. Thanks.
….just got done with our pizza dinner. It was AMAZINGLY delicious! Definitely going to add it to my list of favorite recipes.
Have you tried CI’s thin pizza? I prefer thin pizza to thick and that one is really good( and very thin). I also love grilled pizza and CI’s recipe rocks. I’m a total CI junkie too. I just made their tortilla soup and red chili chicken enchilada’s a couple days ago.
Kiki-I’ll work on a post about that. Good question!
Emily-I’m so happy it turned out well for you! Yay!
Randi-Yep, I make their grilled pizza quite often, especially in the summertime, when I hate to heat the oven up to 450 degrees. I haven’t tried a thin crust version in the oven…I’ll have to look into that. My husband is a thick crust fan, but he liked the grilled pizza and he may very well like the oven thin crust pizza too.
Wow, this was so good. We are cutting back but pizza is one thing my husband really craves. He said this will definitely replace take out anytime I want to make it. Thanks so much for posting this!
I tried this recipe last night and this pizza was so good! And one recipe made enough pizza to fill up my 16 and 19 year old sons’ stomachs. There was even enough for me with some left over. I made my crust in 10-inch pans, so it probably wasn’t quite as thick as yours. Thanks so much for posting this recipe!