Detroit-style BLT personal pan pizza

With a base of roasted garlic and parmesan cheese, this pizza is perfect for topping with bacon, lettuce, and tomato slices that have been dressed in olive oil and red wine vinegar. All of these components build into a super flavorful and texturally diverse pizza experience that you won't soon forget.
YIELD
2 to 3 slices of pizza
PREP TIME
schedule 20 minutes
COOK TIME
schedule 20 minutes
TOTAL TIME
schedule 2 hours and 40 minutes

Ingredients:

Roasted garlic parmesan sauce
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • 14 teaspoon plus a pinch salt
  • 14 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 14 teaspoon cayenne pepper powder
  • 3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
  • 25 cloves or 2 heads of roasted garlic
Pizza dough
  • 120 grams bread flour (1 cup - can use all-purpose flour)
  • 3 grams salt (1/2 teaspoon)
  • 4 grams instant yeast (a bit more than 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 6 grams olive oil (1 1/2 teaspoon)
  • 96 grams water (1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon)
  • non-stick cooking spray
  • 8 grams olive oil (2 teaspoons - this goes in the loaf pan)
Pizza toppings
  • 2 to 3 ounces brick cheese in 1/2 inch cubes (can use Munster or Monterey Jack)
  • 3 to 4 cooked bacon slices, diced into 1 inch pieces
  • 12 cup lettuce, sliced
  • 8 or 9 grape tomatoes sliced
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
  • salt and black pepper

Related blog post: Can you sandwich a Detroit-style pizza?

Directions:

Roasted garlic parmesan sauce: add the butter to a medium sized pot over medium heat. When the butter is melted and bubbly, add 2 tablespoons of flour and stir. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. 

Add milk, salt, cayenne pepper powder and stir to combine everything. Try to make sure there are no lumps of flour. 

Once the sauce is smooth, add parmesan cheese and roasted garlic and stir to combine. Simmer the sauce for 10 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken. Allow sauce to cool and store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Pizza dough: add flour, salt, and yeast to a medium-sized bowl and stir all dry ingredients until thoroughly combined.

Measure and add 6 grams of olive oil (1.5 teaspoons) and water, and stir for 2 minutes to ensure that all dough components are combined and there are no dry flour spots. The dough will be very sticky and probably difficult to handle with your hands, so keep using the spoon.

Spray the inside of an 8x4-inch loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and then add 2 teaspoons or 8 grams of olive oil to the pan and tilt the pan a few times to allow the olive oil to spread out some.

Add the sticky dough on top of the olive oil in the pan and moisten your fingertips with some of the olive oil to prevent sticking. Using your olive-oiled fingertips, press the dough to flatten it and try to get the dough to reach close to all four corners of the pan. Flipping the dough after you've flattened it will help to coat the dough thoroughly with olive oil and make it easier to handle with your fingers. 

Once the dough is flattened and stretching close to the corners of the pan, cover the pan and allow it to rise for 1.5 to 2 hours or until it is really puffy and at least doubled in size.

Near the end of the rise time, preheat your oven to 500 degrees F (260 C).

Toppings: scatter your 1/2 inch cubes of cheese all over the top of the dough. Make special effort to ensure some of the cheese is against the side of the pan and in the corners because that cheese will melt to the pan and become crispy from caramelization. Top the cheese with a few spoonfulls of roasted garlic parmesan sauce. You will have sauce leftover that can be used on pasta or more pizzas.

Bake the pizza for 18 to 20 minutes. 

Remove from the pan to a cooling rack to cool before serving. 

While the pizza is cooling, add diced bacon, lettuce and sliced tomatoes to a medium bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and red wine vinegar and then sprinkle everything with salt and black pepper. Toss this salad to ensure everything is coated well.

Assemble the pizza by topping the cheesy top with the bacon, lettuce and tomato salad. 

Serve and enjoy.

Have you made this recipe? Share on Bluesky or Instagram, tag @beerinator and let him know!



Advertisement


2 responses to “Detroit-style BLT personal pan pizza”

  1. You column mentioned cheese and the pepperoni version has 2-3 ounces of cheese on it. Did you do the same 2-3 ounces of cheese on your BLT Detroit?
    Excited to try this recipe

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.