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| Click on any pic to enlarge |
On a recent trip to Costco, we had a $3.00 coupon for this huge (16" or more, we didn't measure) bake-at-home pepperoni pizza in the refrigerated section. So we paid $5.99 for this 45 ounce (almost 3 pounds!) pizza, which otherwise is still pretty cheap at $8.99.
It was covered entirely in overlapping slices of thin but about 3" wide slices of pepperoni. It seemed to me that the cheese would not cook properly without some exposure, so I took off almost half the pepperoni and there was still a LOT on there. While I was doctoring, I added some thinly sliced fresh garlic and some grated Romano Locatelli cheese. The crust seemed dry and fragile and even ripped a little as I transferred it out of the box.
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| Before baking - blanketed in pepperoni |
The instructions called for baking for 10-15 minutes at 400 degrees directly on the center rack of my gas oven. I did that for 12 minutes, then switched to broil for about 2 minutes to better brown the top.
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| Right out of the oven |
The sauce was very much like the tangy version used for in-store pizza. The cheese was a little better thanks to my enhancements. The pepperoni shrunk a lot, and I probably took off too much. The crust had about the same flavor as the in-store version, but it was thinner, crisper, and rigid in an almost Trenton-style way. It had no char from the modest heat of my oven, but it did take a nice golden glow to it.
We enjoyed this mass-produced pie, though it was probably no better than DiGiorno frozen pie. The crust gets a 6, the sauce a 7.5, the cheese gets a 5, the pepperoni a 5. Overall, this pie gets a solid 6. Even cheap pizza is often good pizza, and I'd eat this pie again.
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| Not much character underneath. |
