Here at Doctor Dough, we take our toppings seriously. The best pizza dough for your home kitchen oven deserves the best pizza toppings. Full stop. End of story. Thank you, bye.
What does that actually mean? What if you don’t have access to the best pizza toppings and can only find decent pizza toppings? Maybe Doctor Dough’s definition of "best pizza toppings" is different from your definition. Maybe none of this matters because once you have your Doctor Dough pizza dough in your home, you can flex your decision-making powers and use whatever toppings caramelize your crust.
Pay close attention, here’s the controversial portion of this post: The best pizza toppings are the ones you like! Yep! I said it! And I’ll say it again. It’s your pizza, eat it however you want. (Disclaimer: If your mother is standing over you with a disapproving look, maybe tie a blind fold over her eyes so that she can no longer disapprove of whatever it is you’re adding to your pizza.)
Having now liberated you to lay down whatever toppings "flour your peel", there are some guidelines to follow. Let’s first address the pink yeast in the room: How many toppings are too many toppings?
Many different sites provide an actual number, something like 3 – 5 toppings, as the optimal number. They base their conclusion on things like the harmony of flavors, not overpowering one ingredient with another, and complimentary textures.
Doctor Dough wants you to know they are all wrong. Remember, we have the word "Doctor" in our name, so like, we know stuff. This is your pizza. If you are a purist and only want San Marzano tomatoes crushed with exactly 3.27 Nm of force by your eccentric neighbor, that’s cool. If you’re trying to show off to all your bros with your version of a meatacular voyage covered in several different cheeses whose names your forgot, right on. You do you.
The amount of toppings is the difference between a good pizza and a great pizza.
Sauce only:
Applying a pool’s worth will give you a sad mushy crust. You want enough sauce so that you can clearly taste it, but not so much that you overwhelm the ability of the pizza to properly cook.
Four or five meats:
If you have 4 or 5 different meats you want to use, do not create a layer of each meat. Use smaller bits and sparingly scatter them across the pizza.
Pepperoni:
For something that most of us are more likely to use, let’s build a pepperoni pizza. The first layer is a red sauce that should be applied so that the entire surface is covered (except the crust). You should still be able to see the dough through the sauce.
Next add your cheese. Again, enough to cover the entire surface but you should still be able to see red sauce under the cheese. Last is your pepperoni. Apply the pepperoni so that you cover as much of the pizza as you want but you can still see cheese and sauce underneath. That’s a Doctor Dough approved application of toppings.
The Impact of Over-Topping Your Pizza
We understand that Whatever Mart sold you enough of each topping to last your family the next three generations. It is very tempting to add all that topping goodness to your pizza. We get it. The only thing better than some cheese is MORE cheese. However, while we encourage you to add whatever you want to your perfect pizza, moderation is key. Adding too many toppings to your pizza can lead to a doughtastrophy such as:
Soggy crust and poor structural integrity: Yup, the dreaded pizza flop. While desired in some social circles, we’re trying to avoid it. Too many vegetables, especially those high in water content such as tomatoes, can ruin your veggie supreme. Too much cheese can also overwhelm a pizza crust. Too much of anything will simply weigh down your slice, drag hot molten cheese onto your freshly laundered pants and make you cry. Pizza should make you smile, not cry. (That’s a pro tip from Doctor Dough!)
An uneven cook: Overloading your pizza can cause it to cook unevenly. Some bits become too charred while others remain pasty white, like your hermit friend who thinks vitamin D is the devil’s vitamin. A perfect pizza should be cooked evenly on both the top and bottom. The leopard spotting on the pizza booty (that's the underside of the pizza) should be spread out across the whole pie. The caramelization of the crust on top should be across the whole crust, not just one part. Overloading those toppings will cause those on the bottom layer not to cook through. While bits of cooked and uncooked cheese may provide a textural contrast, let’s just agree to avoid that situation.
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