Switchback Detroit-Style Pizza

Switchback’s Detroit-Style Pizza recipe accompanies our story about Switchback Pizza in the Winter 2024 issue, which focuses on grains. We love all of their pizzas, which often featured tons of local high-quality ingredients; they spent a lot of their early career selling pizzas at farmers markets right out of their pizza oven trailer. But the Detroit-style version has become a favorite in the past few years.

“We are always experimenting with styles of pizza,” says Marguerite Viola, who runs Switchback with her husband Andrew Foreman. “In 2022, Drew and our head pizza maker, Justin, worked together to create a Detroit-style pizza. We put it on the menu as a special, and our customers loved it so much we now serve it every Saturday.”

The best part about this pizza? It’s baked in a regular oven. Plus, the dough is very forgiving for home cooks. You can tailor it to fit your day. It’s easiest to start the dough the night before you want pizza so it’s ready the next night. Use the weight measurements if you can; weights are more accurate than volumes.

For toppings, the sky’s the limit! The recipe here is for a plain cheese pizza, but feel free to add seasonal vegetables or meats. Just remember: For Detroit-style pizza, the cheese goes directly on the crust, the toppings go over the cheese, and the sauce goes on at the very end after the pizza is baked.

Switchback Detroit-Style Pizza

Try to use the local grains here in this recipe; it'll make a HUGE difference.

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Ingredients

  

For the crust

• 4 cups (480 g) bread flour such as King Arthur
• 1 cup (120 g) local whole-grain flour (Switchback uses spelt, but choose your grain and have fun)
• 2 cups (456 g)room-temperature water (about 60-70ºF)
• ½ teaspoon teaspoon (2 g) instant yeast
• 1½ teaspoons teaspoons (6 g) granulated sugar
• 1½ teaspoons tablespoons (18 g) olive oil plus some for the pans
• 1½ teaspoons tablespoons (13 g) kosher salt Diamond Crystal preferred

Toppings

• 2 cups shredded cheese preferably a mix of mozzarella, provolone, and cheddar
• ½ to 1 cup of your favorite tomato sauce at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons grated Pecorino Romano cheese

Instructions

 

• The night before pizza night, mix the dough for the crust. Add all the ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook or, if kneading by hand, a mixing bowl. Knead on low speed for 5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bowl and make sure all the flour is wet. Then knead on medium speed for 5 minutes. The dough will be loose, which is fine. Cover with plastic and refrigerate overnight, 10to 12 hours.

  The next morning, oil two 10-inch square baking pans, covering the inside bottom and sides. Cut the dough into two pieces, and place each piece in a prepared pan, pressing out the dough almost to the edges. (If you only have one pan, return one piece of dough to the fridge and bake it in the same pan when the first crust is done.) Cover the pan, and refrigerate until dinnertime, 10 to 12 hours.

  Preheat the oven to 500ºF with convection if you have it. If you have a baking stone or baking steel, place it in the oven to preheat as well. Preheat for at least 1 hour.

  Uncover and press out the dough all the way to the edges of the pan. Bake until the crust is firm but not brown, about 9 minutes. Remove and let cool in the pan. When cool, you can use the crust immediately or freeze it in a zipper-lock bag for up to 1month.

  To top and bake the pizza, preheat the oven as described above. Spread the cheese over the cooled parbaked crust, spreading it all the way to the edges. Bake again at500ºF until the cheese is bubbly, 10 to 12 minutes. Use a large spatula to remove the pizza to a cutting board. Cut into 6 or 8 pieces, and then spoon on the sauce in wide strips. Top with the Romano and serve.

Check out another recipe, this one for Fava Bean Cacio e Pepe, from our Spring 2024 issue1