Build Guides
Step-by-step guides tied to a specific style, a real oven context, and a documented dough spec — with scaling support, not a fixed yield.
A curated starting set, not an exhaustive one — chosen for having the richest, most confidently documented dough specs already in the catalogue. More styles will get a guide over time rather than all at once.
- Neapolitan pizza in a high-heat pizza oven
The classic short, hot bake — built around a soft, long-fermented dough and a high-heat pizza oven rather than a domestic one.
Neapolitan pizza · Electric pizza oven · One 28cm pizza per dough ball
- New York-style pizza in a domestic oven
A large, foldable slice pizza adapted to a standard home oven with a steel or stone, rather than the commercial deck ovens it was developed for.
New York-style pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 40cm pizza per dough ball
- Detroit-style pizza in a rectangular steel pan
A thick, airy pan pizza built for its signature caramelised cheese edge — the one style on this list where sauce traditionally goes on last, not first.
Detroit-style pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 25x35cm pan, cut into 6-8 rectangular pieces
- Chicago deep-dish pizza in a deep round pan
A tall, richly enriched pastry-like dough baked long and layered in reverse order — cheese directly on the dough, then toppings, then a chunky sauce on top — to protect the cheese and crust over a long bake.
Chicago deep-dish pizza · Domestic conventional (non-fan) oven · One 25cm deep round pan
- Pizza al taglio (Roman-style) in a home oven
A very high-hydration tray pizza that relies on a long, cold fermentation and a light touch when shaping to keep its open, airy crumb intact.
Pizza al taglio (Roman-style) · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 40x60cm tray, cut into individual portions by weight
- Sicilian-American pizza in a rectangular pan
A thick, focaccia-like square pan pizza built with standard sauce-then-cheese layering — the same oiled-rectangular-pan family as Detroit, but without Detroit's reverse-layered caramelised edge, giving a denser, more bread-like crumb.
Sicilian-American pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One standard rectangular pan (approx. 33x23cm), cut into 8-12 squares
- Grandma pizza in a home pan, same-day
A thin, minimally-risen, same-day pan pizza imitating Long Island home cooking — deliberately given far less rise time than Sicilian-American's thick, airy crumb, and topped in reverse (cheese first, sauce on top).
Grandma pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One standard sheet pan (approx. 33x23cm), cut into 8-12 squares
- Chicago tavern-style pizza, rolled thin and cut into squares
A very thin, uniformly cracker-crisp round pizza rolled with a pin rather than stretched by hand, and cut into small squares ('party cut') rather than wedges — reportedly the pizza Chicagoans actually eat most, despite the city's deep-dish reputation.
Chicago tavern-style pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 32cm round, rolled thin, cut into a grid of small squares
- St. Louis-style pizza with Provel and a cracker-thin crust
An unleavened or barely-leavened, cracker-thin dough topped with Provel — a smooth, low-stretch processed cheese blend distinctive to the St Louis area — and cut into small squares. One of the most structurally distinct doughs in the whole catalogue: almost no rise at all.
St. Louis-style pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 32cm round, rolled cracker-thin, cut into a grid of small squares
- Roman tonda (scrocchiarella) in a home oven
Rome's other round pizza tradition — rolled flat and thin with a pin rather than hand-stretched, with no raised soft rim, baked longer and cooler than Neapolitan pizza to favour an audibly crisp ('scrocchiarella') result over char.
Roman tonda · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 30cm round pizza per dough ball
- New England bar pizza in a small personal pan
A thin, same-day, individual-size pan pizza from Massachusetts tavern tradition, with cheese pushed to the pan's edge for a browned border — a much faster schedule than this catalogue's other pan styles, built around a small 25-30cm pan rather than a shared tray.
New England bar pizza · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One small 25-30cm round pan per portion
- Pizza al padellino in a small steel pan
Turin's small, individual, cold-fermented pan pizza — a crisp, almost fried bottom around a soft, thick interior, baked in a 12-16cm oiled steel pan. Same small personal-pan format as New England bar pizza, but on a 24-48 hour cold ferment rather than a same-day schedule.
Pizza al padellino · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One small 14cm round pan per portion
- Pizza fritta — deep-fried Neapolitan dough pockets
Naples's deep-fried answer to a working oven, born from post-war scarcity: the same Neapolitan dough base, opened, stuffed with ricotta and provola, sealed, and fried rather than baked. The only guide on this site that doesn't use an oven at all.
Pizza fritta · Pan or stovetop-assisted method · 4-5 stuffed fried pockets from a batch of 200g dough balls
- Calzone — a baked, folded Neapolitan dough pocket
A folded, stuffed, and baked dough pocket — calzone's defining difference from its fried relatives (pizza fritta, panzerotto) is that it goes into the oven, not the fryer, giving a firm, bread-like exterior around a soft, steam-cooked filling.
Calzone · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One stuffed calzone per dough ball
- Trenton tomato pie with cheese-under-sauce layering
A thin, hand-stretched, cold-fermented pizza from Trenton, New Jersey, built on the same New York-family dough logic as a standard NY slice but layered in reverse — cheese goes directly on the dough, with a thick, chunky sauce spooned on top.
Trenton tomato pie · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 32cm pizza per dough ball
- Sfincione — Palermo's spongy tray pizza with onion-anchovy sauce and breadcrumbs
Sicily's other tray pizza — a thicker, spongier crumb than Sicilian-American, built on a robust tomato-onion-anchovy sauce and finished with a breadcrumb topping rather than a conventional cheese-forward layer.
Sfincione · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One standard rectangular tray (approx. 33x23cm), cut into 8-12 squares
- Chicago pizza puff — a deep-fried, sealed pizza turnover
A Chicago-original hot-dog-stand food: a thin, largely unleavened wrapper sealed fully around a pizza filling and deep-fried whole — a genuinely different construction from any other guide on this site, closer to a fried turnover than a topped pizza.
Chicago pizza puff · Pan or stovetop-assisted method · 4 individual sealed puffs from a batch of four 90g wrapper portions
- Media masa — Buenos Aires's twice-proofed everyday pan pizza
The everyday crust of Buenos Aires pizzerias: a medium-thickness dough proofed twice — once in bulk, once again in the pan — for a spongy, open crumb, then covered generously with cheese to the pan's edge.
Media masa (Argentine half-dough pizza) · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One 30cm round pan, cut into wedges
- Sardenaira — Liguria's cheese-free anchovy and olive flatbread
A focaccia-like Ligurian tray bread with no cheese at all, and traditionally no tomato either — a genuinely different build from every other guide on this site, all of which use at least one of cheese or tomato sauce.
Sardenaira · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One round or rectangular tray (approx. 30cm round or equivalent), cut into wedges or squares
- Flammekueche — Alsace's paper-thin cream, onion, and lardon flatbread
An Alsatian farmhouse flatbread built on an unleavened, paper-thin rolled dough with a crème fraîche base instead of tomato sauce and no cheese at all — the thinnest, fastest-baked, and only dairy-based build in this catalogue.
Flammekueche (tarte flambée) · Domestic fan (convection) oven · One long rectangular or oval flatbread (approx. 40x25cm) per dough portion, cut into strips