Quattro Formaggi Pizza Recipe

When Andris Lagsdin, who invented the Baking Steel (kind of a big deal) offered to send me some of his 72 hour dough to try, I was psyched. The 72 hour dough is currently on kickstarter and I can’t stress enough how perfect it is for someone like me. I won’t have to feel any more dough-shame just because I don’t have the kitchen / attention span / time to make dough myself instead of buying it at the store. Homemade dough, delivered to my door? Amen.

Once I knew the 72 hour dough was on its way, I got to planning the toppings I’d use. I had a hunk of Vermont Creamery goat cheese in my fridge that needed to be used up, so I figured I might as well shoot for the stars and try to recreate Frank Pepe’s quattro formaggi pizza recipe!

Pepe’s actually posted this video a while ago which shows their quattro formaggi pizza being made. This led me to my next adventure- deciding to slice my own mozzarella. At first I used a knife, which was a fail- I couldn’t get the cheese slices thin enough. Luckily I remembered I had a cheese slicer like this one laying around the house, which got the job done a lot better. Anyway here’s the recipe!

Ingredients

• 1 ball 72 hour dough
• Pizza sauce (I really like the kind you can get from Whole Food’s prepared food section)
• Whole milk mozzarella, sliced
• goat cheese, crumbled up
• Shredded asiago
• Grated romano cheese

Directions

1. At the same time you set out the dough to get to room temp, start heating up your baking steel or pizza stone. I preheat my oven as high as it will go, 550F, with the baking steel on my top rack for 45 min.
2. Once the dough is at room temp, stretch it out on a lightly floured surface. I use parchment paper on a wooden peel. Don’t stretch it too thin – it’s easy to do! (see below)
3. Lay the sliced mozzarella down on your pizza in a single layer.
4. Spread about 3 spoonfuls of sauce on top of the mozzarella. Make sure not to use too much – you don’t want your pizza weighed down and soggy.
5. Top the mozzarella and sauce with the goat cheese, asiago, and romano.
6. Once the baking steel is pre-heated, slide your pizza onto it and let it bake for 4 min.
7. At the 4 min mark, take out your parchment paper (if used) and give the pizza a spin. At this point I switch to my metal peel because it slides under the pizza a lot easier than my wooden peel.
8. Bake the pizza for 2-3 more minutes while keeping an eye on it, until the crust is slightly browned and the cheese is melted. You can also broil your pizza for the last few minutes to get a more well-done crust.
9. Slice the pizza and enjoy!