A simple homemade cheese pizza with so much impact your friends' heads will fly off

​I am not a food pusher. But during a pizza night at our house, there comes that moment where I have to say, "Ya you know, I’ve got one doughball left.” There’s a lot of, “Oh, I’m full” and “No, I can’t.” But as happened last night, there’s usually one enthusiastic participant who says, “Yes, I will” And yes, we did.
 
So I made that pizza, which we’re about to discuss. That’s because I knew my wife, who insisted that she could not eat any more, would take a bite of that pizza, look at me, and say, “Damn you.” She knows: this is The Simplest Pizza, yet is always a crowd pleaser because it sings a siren song of cheese. Despite such simplicity, it’s amazing at how much it can make you look like a genius. This is the magic pizza you want to know. It wins friends and influences people. It might even negotiate a better salary for you.

​It used to be this pizza was jokingly called Cheese On Cheese Action. But really, since there are three cheeses, and Cheese On Cheese On Cheese Action is a cheese too far, I’m thinking maybe we should just call it C3.
 
Note: NO recipe to follow. The secret here is so simple, it’s almost embarrassing. You just need to apply this intel to your existing cheese pizza recipe.
 
In my case, this is literally a regular cheese pizza with a simple augmentation. As described, it’s a 14-inch pizza made in a home oven.
 
The dough is a basic Neapolitan formula of water, flour, salt and yeast, cold-fermented 72 hours for maximum flavor
 
The sauce is an umami flavor-bomb, New York-style sauce. Mine is made with New Jersey tomatoes from First Field, (that's an Amazon affiliate link, and the company is a family business based in New Jersey), and they're punched up with olive oil, basil, salt, garlic and onion powders, and pepper.
 
 
And then comes the cheese secret.
 
For C3, we use slightly less low moisture whole milk mozzarella than we normally apply for a cheese pizza, followed by the standard amount of Pecorino Romano.
 
After that is the Crazy Ivan.
 
Nobody sees this cheese coming.
 
We add about half an 8-ounce package of fresh mozzarella pearls.
 
Wait! What?! Fresh mozzarella is the secret?!
 
 
Feel free to hate me. I told you, it’s so simple it’s almost stupid.
 
But yes, a well-distributed portion of fresh mozzarella gives this pizza an extra cheesy, creamy, milky depth that nobody expects.
 
And I admit, another cheap trick that helps this along is a finishing sprinkle of dried oregano.
 
That little herbal smack across the taste buds is a lot of fun. And New York-style pizza lovers are especially taken by it.
 
This is no pizza for purists. And yes, I’m proud of my heathen ways.
 
 
Here’s how I do this.

You may have your own ideas, and that’s fine. It’s hard to screw this up.
 
I make my normal 14-inch cheese pizza using a 365-gram doughball.
 
Next up, we cover that stretched pizza dough with about 75 grams of the sauce described above.
 
Then we apply about 3 to 4 ounces of shredded low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella.
 
After that, an even sprinkle of about 3/4 of an ounce of shredded Pecorino Romano. (For me, that’s an easy handful.)
 
 
Then, straight from the package, about 3 to 4 ounces of Fresh Mozzarella Pearls.
 
If you’re not familiar with this product, it’s fresh mozzarella that’s been formed into very small balls sometimes known as bocconcini. (If you’ve seen something called bocconcini in the supermarket, they’re typically larger—about the size of a golf ball. These bocconcini are closer in size to marbles.)
 
If you can’t find the pearls, a regular-size fresh mozzarella can be used. You just have to tear it into pieces about the size of a fingertip. Smaller than a grape, maybe about the size of a typical blueberry.
 
 
Now the “fun” part of making a pizza.


After distributing the pearls evenly around the pizza, it’s a good idea to give the peel a little shake to check that the pizza is still sliding on the peel—and that the cheese pearls are not rolling off the pizza.
 
If the pearls require a little persuasion to stay in place, I'll give them a delicate push into the raw pizza.

Then comes the launch. Launching requires extra confidence. Use a swift and sure, zippy peel removal so as not to fling mozzarella pearls all over the inside of the your hot oven. They stick. They slide. They scorch.

In my oven, we typically do a standard 6- to 7-minute bake at 550 degrees on a preheated steel, turning on the broiler after launch.

After removing the fully baked pizza, I give it a quick sprinkle with dried oregano for that New York Pizza point of view.


Then, I bring that pizza to the table, where people say things like, “Wow” and “Damn you” and “There goes my diet again.”
 
I’ve had some people offer to open a pizzeria with me, while others offer to bear my children. (It’s odd when a biological male suggests that to me, but I’m an open-minded guy of the here and now—for entertainment purposes only.)

Some purists will tell you this pizza is a bastardization. That's fine. The purists are doing what makes them happy in a realm where nothing is pure. Pizza has been evolving for hundreds of years and purity is a moving target.

What I aim for is making my friends and family happy. And the C3 Pizza is a simple one way to make it so. And perhaps the simplest. I recommend it.
 
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A lot of big-time professional artisan pizza makers once made their first pizza in a home oven just like yours. You can do it, too. My weird little award-winning book is one way to make it so. The book is about how to get from zero to pizza using the oven you already have. Besides learning to make great pizza, there’s not much else you can do with it. In fact, you can’t even use it to level a table leg if you buy the Kindle edition (which is less expensive than the print editions and has links to instructional videos and printable kitchen worksheets). To learn more about Free The Pizza: A Simple System For Making Great Pizza Whenever You Want With The Oven You Already Have, click here. ​​