Sauce burns or blackens in spots

Ask yourself

• Are the burnt spots where sauce is exposed without cheese or toppings covering it?
• How hot and how long was the bake?
• How thinly was the sauce applied?

Likely causes

1. #1

   Exposed sauce with no cheese or topping covering it, baked at very high heat

   Strongly supported

   Sauce with nothing protecting its surface loses moisture fastest and chars once it dries out, especially at Neapolitan-style temperatures well above 400C.

2. #2

   Sauce applied too thinly or unevenly, leaving thin patches that dry out before the rest of the bake finishes

   Generally accepted

   A thin film of sauce has little moisture left to evaporate before it starts to scorch rather than simply finish cooking.

3. #3

   Sugar content in the sauce caramelising past the point of browning into burning

   Supported, with regional variation

   Sauces with added sugar or naturally sweet tomatoes brown, then burn, faster than a plain sauce at the same temperature.

Rescue it now

Not fixable once burnt; scrape off small blackened patches if the rest of the pizza is otherwise fine

Prevent it next time

Keep sauce fully covered by cheese or toppings on very high-heat bakes, apply it in a thin but even layer with no bare gaps, and reduce added sugar if scorching is recurring

Related

Go deeper

Guides that treat this as an outcome to improve, an environment to work with, or a flavour to understand, rather than only a problem to fix.

Related problems at this stage