Saturday, April 5, 2008

Judging a Pizza By Its Bake

You've heard the expression "Don't judge a book by its cover", so should you judge a pizza by its look? When it comes to food, appearance is a major factor in a persons review of a food product. Pizza is consumed at a rate of approximately 350 slices per second in the United States. This statistic alone stands to reason that all pizza shops should concentrate on the appearance of their pizza. Besides appearance, how else can one judge the overall expectations that a slice of pizza should offer your taste bud's? Here is a list of what we look for when reviewing a pizza.

Appearance of a pizza can do wonders for the overall taste! When you receive your pizza and flip open the box, you are expecting to find a product that is satisfying to your eyes. You quickly glance over the meat and veggie toppings and the cheese in hopes that they are evenly distributed over the whole pizza. Next you quickly glance at the crust to ensure that it isn't burnt. Finally your hands reach for a slice of that heaven and hope that the pizza is actually cut all the way through the crust.

Topping distribution on your pizza is a quality issue that so many pizza shops often deal with. In order to have a proper bake and appearance of a pizza, the pizza toppings should be evenly distributed over the entire pizza. If the pizza toppings aren't evenly distributed over the pizza, this can lead to a doughy center. When this happens, it is often referred to as center loading meaning that the pizza toppings are bunched near the center of the pizza.

Another factor in reviewing pizza is the cheese. Pizza shops use a variety of different cheeses some use mozzarella, while others use provolone, and some even use a blend. For most pizzerias the cheese is what makes their pizza, it's that stringy flavorful topping that we all love. Some pizza shops will load up your pizza with 100% real cheese while others may seem to be a little stingy and use a cheese that maybe oil filled. The overall expectation of cheese should be that it covers the pizza to give a great appearance.

The final factor that you should take into consideration when reviewing a pizza is the dough quality. A great pizza dough will be filled with flavor and have a nice crunchy outside with a soft chewy inside. This can be accomplished by a number of factors the overall pizza dough recipe, the kind of flour that is used, and the bake of the pizza. When you are reviewing a pizza, you should check to see if the crust has a nice even golden brown appearance. If the crust isn't evenly baked, then you will find different shades of golden brown over the entire pizza. Another factor to check is spotting on the pizza crust, if you find small circles with dark shades of brown on your pizza crust, this could mean that your pizza dough wasn't very fresh.

Using these four factors can help you make a great decision when deciding on which pizzeria you are going to offer your hard earned money to. We as Americans love to eat pizza so next time you dive into that doughy goodness, perform your own pizza review and you might just find out some interesting results.

A veteran of the pizza industry making sure your pizza is the best you can get! For more information about the pizza industry, visit http://www.reviewmypizza.com
We specialize in pizza reviews, menu's, coupons, and more!

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