NY Pepperoni
America's favorite pizza — the NY cheese slice topped with natural-casing pepperoni that curls into crispy, greasy cups.
Recipe by ThePizzaPlanet.com · Published
Essential tool for this bake
Find natural-casing pepperoni. We mean it. The standard supermarket stuff is glued together with a synthetic casing that won't cup or crisp the way real pepperoni does. Look at a deli counter, not the snack aisle. Once you have it, slice it thin (about 1.5mm), lay it on top of the cheese, and let the oven do the rest. The cups form, fill with rendered fat, and crisp around the edges. Hot honey at the end is a New York pizzeria move, and it earns its place: the sweetness lands against the rendered fat rather than on top of it. If your slice sags instead of folding, the underside never set — that is a pale, floppy base, and a steel is the fix.
Flour: King Arthur Bread Flour (12.7% protein) — read the review
Dough Formula
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker's % |
|---|---|---|
| Flour (12.7% protein) | 996 g | 100.0% |
| Water | 627 g | 63.0% |
| Salt | 19.9 g | 2.0% |
| Yeast | 5 g | 0.5% |
| Oil | 30 g | 3.0% |
| Sugar | 10 g | 1.0% |
Makes 4 balls of ≈422 g
Ingredients
Dough
- Pizza dough (see formula above)4 balls
Sauce & Cheese
- Cooked tomato sauce — Prepared as for the NY Cheese Slice400 g
- Low-moisture mozzarella300g, shredded
Toppings
- Natural-casing pepperoni100g, thin-sliced
- Hot honey — Optionaldrizzle
Instructions
- 1
Make the dough: mix per the formula above, then follow the calculator schedule for New York — 27 h bulk/cold ferment before shaping (hands-on 20 min).
- 2
Prepare dough, sauce, and cheese as for NY cheese slice.
- 3
Top cheese evenly with pepperoni slices — don't overlap.
- 4
Bake at 260-290°C (500-550°F) on steel for 6-8 minutes.
- 5
Optional: drizzle hot honey immediately after removing.
Tips
- →Hands-on time is about 28 minutes; allow the dough its full ferment — see the calculator schedule
- →Natural-casing pepperoni curls and crisps better than standard
- →Don't put pepperoni under the cheese
- →Hot honey + pepperoni is the best modern pizza upgrade
Video by Artisan Baking Center · 85K views · 8 min · on YouTube
Shop this bake
Flour
King Arthur Bread Flour
The first bag to buy if you bake in a domestic oven. At 12.7% protein with added amylase on the label it gives you chew and colour at 250 °C, which is exactly what an unmalted 00 will not.
$13.42· as of Nov 5, 2026, 03:49 UTCCheck price on Amazon →Read the review →i
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.Ingredient
Polly-O Low Moisture Whole Milk Mozzarella
Thick enough to cube for a Detroit rim, where shreds burn to lace — and four ingredients against a coating of rice flour, cellulose and natamycin that no bake removes.
$39.00· as of Nov 5, 2026, 03:49 UTCCheck price on Amazon →Read the review →i
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.Ingredient
SAF Instant Yeast
Instant, so it goes in dry with the flour: no warm-water step means no step at which the yeast can be cooked, which is where an active-dry dough most often dies.
Check price on Amazon →Read the review →Equipment
Original Baking Steel
6.4 mm is the home compromise: enough stored heat to bake two pies back to back, in a slab that will never crack the way a cordierite stone eventually does.
$139.00· as of Nov 5, 2026, 03:49 UTCCheck price on Amazon →Read the review →i
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.Equipment
Skyflame Aluminium Pizza Peel (14 × 16 in)
The single peel to own if you own one: thin enough to launch from, rigid enough to turn and retrieve with, at the size a home oven door takes.
$27.99· as of Nov 5, 2026, 03:49 UTCCheck price on Amazon →Read the review →i
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
If this goes wrong
Pizza base is pale and floppy
The surface of your base never got hot enough for long enough to brown. Bake on a fully preheated steel at maximum, bake it longer than feels right, and switch to a malted bread flour or add 1–2% sugar so there is something there to brown.
Cheese burns before the base cooks
The top of your oven is running far ahead of the bottom. Get the slab hotter so the base needs less time, move the pizza down away from the grill element, and use a whole-milk low-moisture mozzarella — it carries more fat and browns more slowly than part-skim.
Pizza dough won't stretch (springs back)
The gluten is tensioned, not broken. Cover the ball and rest it — 20 minutes if it is already at room temperature, 1–2 hours if it came out of the fridge — then stretch again in stages.
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