Friday Night is Pizza Night

…and I haven’t made the deep dish crust in a while. I guess I’ve been a little busy and a little bored with it. The balance of flours has seemed about optimum considering the ingredients I’ve been working with, but it’s still been falling short of the mark. It wasn’t until I read over a Cook’s Illustrated recipe for yeasted deep dish pizza crust a few weeks ago that a light went on: potato starch. They tried swapping out about a third of their flour for cooked potato and came up with what they thought was the lightest, moistest, most evenly browned crust they’d ever tried. Is this the secret ingredient is some Chicago deep dish pies? They seem to think so, and heck I’m game. If you feel like following along this weekend, use the following proportions for the 12 ounces of total starch the recipe calls for: 6 ounces AP flour, 3 ounces corn meal, 3 ounces cooked, riced russet potato. Oh, and only use about 2.5 to 3 ounces of water. Otherwise, carry on with the recipe as instructed. Good luck pizza lovers!