It had been years since I last ate a deep-dish pizza! Usually, I stick to the standard thinner based pizzas as it makes me feel less guilty about my pizza night - but I thought it might be time to push the boat out for this pizza night, so I decided to order a deep dish at-home pizza making kit from Japes.
I opted for the Chicago Pizza, which was a pepperoni pizza with loads and loads of cheese! I am a massive cheese-lover, so was very excited to try this.
The kit arrived quickly, and was packaged in a disposable cooler bag to keep all the ingredients fresh on their way over. The kit included the pizza dough, mozzarella, tomato sauce, pepperoni, parmesan, polenta and aluminium pans.
I was in awe of how much cheese I just unpacked; I had to stop myself from making pizza for breakfast and save myself for dinner.
It ended up being an early dinner for me… I began by watching their video tutorial on their website to make sure I didn’t mess anything up. The kit also came with an easy-to-follow set of instructions with images to accompany each step.
Next, I sprinkled a handful of polenta onto my kitchen countertop and began shaping the dough using my hands to stretch it out into a circular shape. I must admit I struggled keeping the circular shape, and ended up with a very wonky looking pizza base - but it’s fine because I manged to fix it later on!
Once I had shaped the bases, I placed them into the aluminium trays and ensured the edges of the pan were covered so there was enough crust to support all the cheese. I did have to do a bit of pizza patchwork for this to make sure there were no gaps.
It was time to add the cheese! I sprinkled a mountain of mozzarella onto the pizza base and compacted it down to make sure every slice had the same amount of cheese.
Once the cheese was on, I added the pepperoni ensuring the whole pizza was covered so that every bite was full of flavour!
I then added the tomato sauce. I must admit I was a bit confused by this as I have never put the tomato sauce on top of my toppings before, but I made sure to stick to the instructions because their pizzas aren’t famous for no reason right? By the way, this tomato sauce smelled amazing and made me even more excited to eat!
I sprinkled on some of the parmesan, then it was into the oven! The smells coming from my kitchen were amazing. It felt like I was sitting in an actual pizzeria!
Finally, the moment I had been waiting for! It was time to pull the pizzas out of the oven. The cheese was still bubbling, and the crusts had crisped to perfection! I added some fresh basil from my basil plant as garnish, then it was time to tuck in.
From the moment I cut into my first slice, I could tell it was about to get cheesy. So, of course I had to get a classic cheese pull photo to showcase it for you. I reckon I could have pulled that cheese for about 3 metres before it broke apart.
I think what made this pizza taste even nicer was the fact I knew it had been handmade by me! Japes also do a veggie pizza which has spinach in replacement of pepperoni. I really hope they expand on their range of at home pizza kits so I can try some different flavour combinations!
Japes also have a restaurant in London, which I hope I can go and visit soon now that restrictions have eased! I think it would be fun to compare my homemade pizza against their professional pizza to see how my pizza skills compare to theirs.
