Detroit-style Pepperoni Pizza

Gather up the yeast, bread flour, salt and toppings.

Run a faucet over your wrist and adjust the temperature until it feels just slightly warm. This should be a pretty good temperature to get the yeast active. Collect about 2 cups of this warm water.

Place the yeast in a large mixing bowl. A kitchen scale is very convenient here. If the scale's capacity is high enough, you can just hit the tare button after each ingredient. Also, measuring by weight is much more accurate with flour.

Add the salt.

Pour in about 220g of the warm water.

Add the bread flour.

Mix the flour into the liquids, working it together to form a moist dough.

Once the dough comes together, cover it with a towel and set it aside for 10 minutes.

Set a timer for 5 minutes and start kneading. Kneading can seem a little intimidating if you've never done it before, but it's quite simple. Just grab one edge of the dough ball, stretch it out and fold it back over into the main dough repeatedly.

Cover the dough again and set it aside for 90-120 minutes or until it has doubled in volume. The time depends mostly on the temperature. If it's hot in your kitchen, the dough should rise quickly. If it is cold in your kitchen, the dough will rise more slowly.

Preheat oven to 500°F.

Preheat your oven to 500°F or as high as it will go.

When the dough is ready, fluffy, stretchy and full of air, grease up a standard 9" x 13" casserole dish. I prefer a metal baking dish because it should make for a crispier crust. If you've made this recipe a few times and you're ready to take it to the next level, you can find pans specifically designed for detroit-style pizza online.

Place the dough in the baking dish and gently stretch it out to the edges. It might take a little teasing to get it to relax to the edges, just keep at it.

Spread the marinara over the crust, all the way to the edges. This style of pizza should be topped right up to the wall of the pan.

Cover in cheese. Make sure the cheese goes all the way to the edge. The crispy burnt cheese that forms at the edge of the pan is one of the key features of this style of pizza.

I like a lot of pepperoni.

Bake for about 15-20 minutes. If your oven won't go to 500°F, add 5 minutes or so. If your oven can go above 500°F, reduce baking time.