The Conant Avenue Motor City Red Top & Frico
Chapter 2 — The Sauces & Toppings
Detroit-style pizza is the quintessential expression of American industrial terroir. Born in a 1946 speakeasy and baked in forged blue steel drip trays scavenged from automotive plants, the Motor City square is defined by its frico—a shattered, caramelized wall of cheese fried directly against the pan. Achieving this masterpiece demands specific hardware and formulaic precision. You need a highly extensible seventy-five percent hydration dough, the slow enzymatic breakdown of a 24-hour cold ferment, and the brutal conductive heat of a baking steel. This is a precise, unapologetic homage to working-class culinary engineering.
Ingredients
- white bread flour219 g
- whole wheat flour12 g
- water173 g
- fine sea salt5 g
- diastatic malt powder2 g
- instant dry yeast1 g
- vegetable shortening2 tbsp
- Monterey Jack cheese140 g
- Muenster cheese140 g
- mild white cheddar cheese60 g
- extra-virgin olive oil2 tbsp
- garlic3 cloves
- crushed tomatoes28 oz
- granulated sugar1 tbsp
- dried oregano2 tsp
- dried thyme1 tsp
- Pecorino Romano1 tbsp
Method
- 01
Mix the dough using a brief autolyse.
Whisk the warm water, yeast, and diastatic malt. Mix in the bread and whole wheat flours until a shaggy mass forms, cover, and rest for 20 minutes to jump-start gluten development.
- 02
Incorporate the salt and knead.
Sprinkle the salt over the dough, wet your hands, and perform stretch-and-folds for 3 to 5 minutes until the mass becomes smooth and cohesive.
- 03
Ferment the dough for twenty-four hours.
Let the dough rise at room temperature for an hour until increased by half, then move to the refrigerator. Using exactly 0.5% yeast ensures the perfect slow enzymatic breakdown during this overnight retard, unlike the higher-yeast same-day doughs used in commercial shops.
- 04
Prepare the thick Red Top sauce.
Bloom the garlic, oregano, and thyme in the olive oil over medium heat. Add the tomatoes and sugar, and simmer aggressively for 30 minutes to cook off excess water until it is a concentrated, heavy paste.
- 05
Prepare the pan and proof the dough.
Lubricate a 10x14-inch hard-anodized aluminum pan heavily with vegetable shortening and a drizzle of olive oil. Gently stretch the cold dough to the corners, cover, and proof at room temperature for 2 hours until bubbly and jiggly.
- 06
Build the frico cheese architecture.
Distribute the blended cheeses over the dough, making a deliberate, heavy wall of cheese pushed directly against the exposed metal sides of the pan—this is what fries into the legendary frico edge.
- 07
Bake on a preheated baking steel.
Place the pan directly onto a baking steel that has been preheated in a 550°F oven for one hour. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cheese perimeter is a dark, caramelized, nearly black lace.
- 08
Release the frico and rest the pizza.
Remove from the oven and immediately run a thin metal spatula around the edge to release the molten cheese before it welds to the pan, then carefully lift the pizza onto a wire rack.
- 09
Apply the Red Top sauce and finish.
Ladle two or three continuous, thick vertical stripes of hot sauce down the length of the pie, dust with Pecorino Romano, and cut into eight squares.
Notes
Mastering baker's percentages is non-negotiable.
This 75% hydration formula requires strict precision: 95% bread flour, 5% whole wheat, 75% water, 2% salt, 1% malt, and 0.5% yeast. It is the only way to reproduce this exact airy crumb structure consistently at home.
Hardware dictates the final crust.
A hard-anodized aluminum pan mimics the conductive heat of historical blue steel without the rust. A baking steel is strictly mandatory to push enough thermal energy into the bottom of the pan to fry the crust before the top burns.
Never use pre-shredded bagged cheese.
Pre-shredded cheeses are coated in anti-caking starches that inhibit fat from rendering. The cheese will burn and dry out rather than fry into a cohesive frico.