Review: Bola Frozen Pizza - Austin, TX

Frozen pizza. At the right moment, even the cheapest store-brand frozen pizza can be an indulgent treat. Rarely as good as fresh-from-the pizzeria, but still boasting that magical trio of dough, cheese, and tomato.

Naturally, I was intrigued when I spotted a new-to-me frozen pizza featured in a front display case at an H-E-B supermarket in Lakeway, an Austin suburb. The elegant box said "Bola Pizza - hand made in Austin Texas." From the handful of toppings choices, I selected the Sausage & Pepperoni pizza, priced at $12.34 for a 19.75 ounce pie.

The backstory on Bola Pizza is that chef/owners Jamie and Christian Bowers followed a progression from hosting pizza parties for fun, to a pizza catering business, to developing a frozen version using a three-day cold fermented dough recipe and organic tomato sauce. The pizzas are now carried in H-E-B and Central Market locations in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston.

In evaluating any frozen pizza, it's natural to compare it to pizzeria-fresh pizza as well as other frozen brands. Since the inception of this blog in 2011, the best frozen pizza I have found is Roberta's, available at Whole Foods and several online retailers. 

But every pizza comparison, fresh or frozen, needs a "minimally acceptable" baseline, and my baseline is DiGiorno's, a surprisingly decent frozen pizza. "Is it better than DiGiorno's?" Fresh or frozen, it's not worth the calories if it can't beat this frozen pie.

Out of the box, before baking

Out of the box, the frozen pie looked promising, with a bit of char on the cornicione, big clouds of mozzarella, and a generous mix of pepperoni and sausage toppings. The box contained very specific instructions regarding defrosting the pizza then baking, so that start to finish was about 30-40 minutes.  

Fresh out of my oven

As with any pizza, the crust is the foundation and the most important element. this pie sported a very thin crust that had been par-baked on a screen. It was notably tasty, chewy, and crisp on the bottom. While the pizza had the look of a Neapolitan (except for no puffy crust and scant leopard spotting), it definitely is not a Neapolitan pizza; structurally, it was more akin to the hybrid pie from Lake Travis Pizza. 

Excellent crust was pre-baked on a screen

Beyond that solid foundation, the Bola Pizza had a flavorful sauce, surprisingly good sausage and pepperoni on top, and generous amounts of fresh mozzarella cheese. However, that cheese was a weakness because the texture was off. It’s hard to describe, but it fell gelatinous in the mouth. Perhaps it had been in my grocer's freezer too long?

Overall, the Bola is probably the second best frozen pizza I’ve had (after Roberta‘s), but it could be improved a lot by swapping in conventional dry mozzarella or some other cheese blend for the fresh mozzarella which did not do well being frozen and then thawed and then heated. 

I'm certainly going to try some other varieties of Bola Pizza (intrigued by the one with lamb topping) and also re-evaluate the cheese. But even with that hiccup, this was a well-balanced high-quality pizza at a very affordable price. Kudos to Jamie and Christian Bowers for advancing the state of frozen pizza.