The Unexpected Ice Cube Hack For Gooier Cheese Pizza
Pizza, no matter where it's from or how you eat it, is rarely ever disappointing. Let's be honest, even the bad ones still taste pretty good. There's something about that bread-sauce-cheese-topping combo that creates magic, and every bite is supremely satisfying.
This beloved handheld pie has proven itself a fan favorite across the globe, with endless variations, flavor combinations, and cooking methods that make each pizza special. It's hard to believe it can get any better — but it can. And people continue to find ways to make it so. It can be fluffier, crispier, saucier, meatier, cheesier. And yes, it can be gooier.
If you love a good cheese pull, you're a cacio e pepe fan, or you prefer your pizza extra gooey — this hack is for you. Whip out your pizza dough, fire up the oven, and listen up: Here's the simple trick you never knew about to make your next cheese pizza perfectly gooey.
How to take your cheese pizza to the next level
This surprisingly easy and little-known hack is shared by Paul Foster, chef patron at fine dining restaurant Salt in Stratford-upon-Avon. After a year and a half in business, Salt received Stratford-upon-Avon's first Michelin star, so this chef can be trusted.
The secret to the ultimate gooey, cheesy pizza? Ice cubes. Foster tells The Guardian that all you need to do is stretch out your pizza dough (he uses sourdough) and then place two or three ice cubes on top of the dough. Bake it in the oven before you add anything else to the pizza. The chef says that as the crust bakes, the ice will melt into a starchy sauce. Then, when you add the cheese to your pizza and pop it back in the oven, a gooey, cheesy sauce forms that resembles the creamy deliciousness found in a cacio e pepe pasta dish.
"It's quite a traditional technique," Foster says, "but not a lot of people have heard of it and it's very rarely done." It may be time to change that because this uber-simple hack that requires just one small step and no extra ingredients can truly take your homemade pizza to the next level of gooeyness.
Let's take this gooey pizza a step further
This ice cube hack will result in a kind of cacio e pepe gooey sauce, so why not go all the way and make a cacio e pepe pizza? The foolproof ice cube trick that chef Paul Foster swears by was first conceived by Chef Stefano Callegari of Sbanco in Rome, who uses crushed ice on his dough to make a divine cacio e pepe pizza.
The good news: it's extremely easy to make your own version at home. All you'll need is pizza dough (of course you can make your own, but no one will judge you for store-bought), pecorino romano cheese, olive oil, pepper, and some cornmeal for sprinkling.
Once you've flattened your pizza dough into about a 10-12 inch circle, transfer it to a cornmeal-covered baking sheet and pop it in the oven with two tablespoons of crushed ice in the center of the dough. Bake for around eight minutes until the crust is golden brown, and then immediately cover the pie with your desired amount of finely grated cheese (Callegari uses a ¼ cup per pizza, but you do you). As the cheese melts into that quintessential gooey sauce, drizzle with olive oil and finish with lots of pepper. All that's left to do now is savor it.