The 99 cent slice made it’s mark in NYC a few years back. Now there is a price war between some of the purveyors of the 99 cent slice, and they’re down to 75 cents a slice. Will it stop there?

Initially, my reaction to a dirt cheap, large slice of pizza in NYC is that there has to be something wrong with that. What could it possibly taste like?

Then I’m reminded that even with the best ingredients — Caputo 00 and San Marzano’s — I can make a pretty good slice of pizza for very little money.

What do you think about the 75 cent slice? Have you had one? Have you calculated what it costs you to make a top quality Margherita pie in your oven? It’s probably a lot less than you think, and I’m sure it will taste better than those cheap NYC slices.

“Four pizzas on the menu, with no fancy-pants toppings. Anthony Mangieri does one thing at Una Pizza Napoletana, and he does it the very best way he can.”

Watch Anthony Mangieri in this video.

After losing her tooth while eating pizza, that tooth fairy better pay her that $1.00! It’s hard to fly to all of those kids houses while wearing cement shoes!

Note to Deadbeat Tooth Fairy

I presume that’s a pizza grease stain on the paper.

Bad taste? Or not?

Did I pull a faux pas by giving my parents a gift certificate for Bufalina — a nearby, wood-fired, gourmet pizza restaurant — when they have their own wood-fired oven and make pizza themselves?

Here was my thinking: Dad’s always wrangled into making pizza for dozens of guests. He built his brick oven primarily to make loaves of bread, and to make the occasional pizza. But once the extended family heard about this, he started getting requests to host pizza parties. I think he enjoys making the pizza for the rest of us.

I just figured that for a change that somebody should make some wood-fired pizza for him instead. I don’t have the wood-fired oven though… yet.

It’s not as if I was saying, “Go to this place and they’ll show you how it’s supposed to be done.” After all, Dad makes fantastic pizza using Caputo flour and San Marzano tomatoes and other top-notch ingredients.

Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below.

Heart-shaped pizza image src: The Slice blog on SeriousEats.com.

I pulled this from the latest PMQ Pizza Magazine, a trade magazine for the pizza restaurant industry.

Breakfast Pizza

• 26-28 oz. dough ball
• 2 oz. olive oil
• Pepper
• Oregano
• Garlic salt
• 2 oz. Romano cheese
• 8-10 extra-large eggs
• 4 oz. Canadian-style bacon
• 3 oz. bacon
• 10 oz. mozzarella cheese
• 3 oz. cheddar cheese

Remove the dough ball from the refrigerator and let it warm to room temperature (at least one hour). Stretch dough ball out to a 16” diameter, leaving a ½” rim at the edge. Spread olive oil on the shell, then sprinkle with pepper, Romano cheese, garlic salt and oregano.

Lightly scramble the eggs (don’t overcook them, as they’ll need to go in the oven).

Add eggs to the pizza shell and top with Canadian-style bacon. Finish with Mozzarella cheese and bacon. Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese on top.

Bake at 550°F until the crust is golden brown.

Are you a breakfast pizza person? Would you make a breakfast pizza? Would you do any of this differently?

Here’s what I see: An egg omelet with a slightly Italian twist, cooked on a pizza crust instead of a in a pan. I’m more likely to make the omelet in the traditional way, and toast some terrific bread to go with it.

(link to recipe on PMQ’s site)

In The Jerk, Steve Martin plays a jerk, who meets up with a variety of whacky characters and, for a while, works in a circus.

Do you remember that scene where he’s sitting in a trailer and eating Pizza in a Cup. Back in the day, that was probably a ludicrous notion, but times have changed. Now you really can find pizza in a cup, or pizza in a cone, or you can make in your own kitchen…

Today, I present you with Pizza in a Jar. (The author rambles a bit about unrelated things, so scroll down if you don’t see the recipe immediately.)

Via lifehacker.com and Bon Appetit

I know that we previously told you that the whole-wheat, Caputo Integrale, was no longer imported.

Well, it appears now that it is available to us and we are bringing it back in 5-, 9- and 12-pound repacks!

Caputo Integrale is not a 00 flour. It is ground more like a typical whole-wheat flour. The magic, as it is with most other Caputo flours is in the blend of wheat that Antimo Caputo puts through his mill.

We also recently started carrying Caputo “Extra” 00, and semolina flour.

Amazon’s Al Dente blog featured a post by one of their foodies who recently discovered Antimo Caputo’s 00 flour, and she raves about it.

When Amazon starts pushing something, let’s hope that the mill in Naples will be able to keep up with the demand. Ha ha!

For that matter, I better go check to make sure we have enough to meet the surge on the variety of Caputo flour that we need to have in stock.

Prompted by my cousin booking her Disney vacation today, Via Napoli popped into my head and I had to let her know that she has to go there. If you’re going to Disney World, then so do you!

Via Napoli is a fairly new restaurant that opened in the Italian section of Epcot. Traditional wood-fired pizza, made with Caputo 00 flour. The reviews I’ve seen of it are fantastic, and I wish I could give a first hand review of it. The last time I was at Disney was before Via Napoli opened.

If you’ve been, let us know how you liked it in the comments below

The delicious pizzas are made with real caputo flour imported from Southern Italy, San Marzano tomatoes, handmade mozzarella and water from a local spring similar to Italy’s Campania region. They are cooked in authentic wood-burning ovens named after the 3 active volcanoes in Italy—Mount Etna, Mount Vesuvius and Stromboli.

To ensure every detail is perfect, Nick Valenti spent time in Naples studying the art of dough, crust, sauce and oven temperatures at the famous pizzerias Da Michele and Trianon.

Via Napoli was created by the renowned Patina Restaurant Group, which also operates the popular Naples Ristorante e Pizzeria at the Disneyland Resort and the Naples 45 Ristorante e Pizzeria in New York City, which was awarded the coveted La Vera Pizza Napoletana certification.

Photo Credit

I just learned something new from my local newspaper. Connecticut has three squirrel hunting seasons, and in fact, squirrel is more popular than one might have thought.

“Right now, I have five squirrels in the Crock-Pot at home, cooking,” Enie, 59, said prior to the festivities. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone try it who didn’t like it.”

His mother taught him how to cook with squirrel. Two of his favorite dishes are squirrel jambalaya and squirrel potpie.

So it sounds like squirrel meat requires some extended cooking to make it tender?

“It’s a dark meat,” Enie explained. “When it’s prepared right, it’s pretty tender. It tastes sweet, because they mainly eat nuts. Two squirrels would be enough for a meal for somebody. Three will feed my wife and I.”

There was also a comment in the article about somebody adding it to their pasta sauce.

Will we see more news like this as the economy lags and food prices rise? I wonder if squirrel would make a good pizza topping. If anybody has a recipe to share, add it to the comments on this post.

Ref: Squirrel: It’s what’s for dinner

Like, 1/8-inch thin crust.

I like my crust thin. I’m too in love with the flavors of the toppings to end up with a thick, fluffy, bready crust, and I love finishing a few slices and then munching on the hard, crunchy, pizza bones that remain in your plate. They’re like crunchy bread sticks that contain the flavors of the oils from the cheese, olive oil, a little char on them.

The day before yesterday I made a single dough ball.

• 275 grams of Caputo Rinforzato flour
• 190 grams of hot tap water
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 tsp kosher salt

I didn’t proof the yeast. I put the flour in the bowl and poured the water, which was probably about 130° into the flour and started mixing it with a wooden spoon.

Once I did this it was cooled down enough to add in the yeast and the salt and I continued to mix it until it came together and then I started to need it by hand for just a few minutes.

I covered the bowl and tossed it into the fridge. I was going to make the pizza the next evening. However, I didn’t feel well last night and didn’t make the pizza. The do spent another night in the fridge.

I took the dough out earlier this afternoon, so it was about 36 hours in the fridge, roughly. Let it warm up up a bit. Then around 4:00, made the pizza.

It stretched easily and I could see the light through the stretched out dough. I stretched it thin enough that a few holes appeared, but I just pinched those to close them. As I maneuvered the dough over to the peel, it was still stretching under it’s own weight as I carried it.

Toppings:

• Shredded mozzerella
• Slivered onions
• Crushed and minced fresh garlic
• Some left over cooked bacon from breakfast, chopped up
• Extra virgin olive oil drizzled over the pie

Made on my pre-heated stone at my oven’s maximum temperature, which is 550°F.

When I took it out, I could tell that it was crispy like I rarely see. It didn’t bend as I let it slide from the peel to the aluminum tray.

It was a fairly consistent 1/8-inch thick under the topics. The outer crust as you can see raised up a bit, but remained under 1/2-inch. Every bite was crispy and tasty.

Some great news: Bannetons and Couches are now $3-4 lower in price, but with the same high quality we’ve always provided.

If you want to see nice round boules with attractive flour patterns, and baguettes that are long and round, then you should give our proofing baskets or cloths a try.

The couches are really nice, heavyweight, natural flax linen. A nice heavyweight couche makes it easy to create the sturdy folds that aid in keeping your baguettes rising upwards, not sideways, so that they maintain their shape during their final rise.

We now have four different shaped bannetons (brotforms): Round, oblong, long, and triangular. These rattan proofing baskets are durable too.

To take the best care of your couches and bannetons, do not wash them. You should typically shake or dust off the loose flour after use, and then store them. Washing them is going to unnecessarily shorten their lifespan.

These make great gifts for the baker you care about. Have a look at the selection of proofing baskets and couches.

Antimo Caputo 00 “Extra” (Some people refer to as the “Extra Blue” or “Extra Blu”, but please don’t confuse this with the Pizzeria flour which is known as the “Blue”. The “Extra” flour comes in bag which is a lighter blue color.

Caputo “Extra” is a flour produced with a low extraction rate, which means that it contains more of the endosperm of the wheat, and less of the bran and germ. It’s a whiter flour, and has a lower protein content.

Its protein content is 11% according to Caputo*. Some information in forums claims it is 9.75%, but those claims appear to be wrong.

If you are looking to make bread that has a softer texture more like store bought white bread or regular Italian bread, or lighter baguettes? Give this flour a try.

It’s closer to an American all-purpose flour, but still a “00″ fine ground flour that is slow ground to avoid heat that would damage the starches and proteins. The kind of quality you expect from Caputo.

*UPDATE: I just received a technical analysis of the Extra flour for interested food scientists, but bakers can simply click here to purchase some today.

A new wood-fired brick oven pizzeria, named Bufalina, opened close to where we live. We’re really happy to have them nearby because now it’s a 10-minute drive for delicious pizza instead of 25-30 minutes.

Bacon and onion pizza is a family favorite, so on our first trip, we ordered the Porri pizza. Porri is the Italian word for leeks. The leeks are caramelized, and combined with pancetta (an Italian bacon), and scamorza (a cheese which resembles a dried mozzarella). The Porri pizza took our basic bacon and onion and elevated it to the gourmet level.

You should give this topping combination a try. It was delicious.

If your pancetta is a bit on the salty side, slice it thin and distribute it evenly over the pie rather than leave it in chunks. The caramelized leeks are milder than onions, but have a unique, buttery flavor that onions don’t. I couldn’t tell if the scamorza was of the smoked variety because the mild smokiness we tasted could have been imparted by the burning wood.

If you live in the area, be sure to get to Bufalina. You can learn more about them on their website.

This is a new combo item: The Caputo 00 Pizzeria flour, in a 9-lb repack and 3 cans of Napoli San Marzano D.O.P. tomatoes in 28-oz cans is a great place to start if you’re just starting out, and it also makes a great gift for the pizza maker.

That same 00 Pizzeria flour is available in their full 55-lb size if you are making pizzas by the dozens, but most of our customers are happy with the repacks. We fill food-grade plastic bags with amounts that most home pizza makers can handle and store easily, and the flour is always fresh. We receive new stock every 3-4 weeks.