Chicago deep dish

Not a bread dough at all: a low-hydration, heavily enriched pastry with cornmeal, laminated with butter for flake. Built upside down in a steel pan, cheese against the crust, sausage in a solid layer, crushed tomato on top so it does not burn over a half-hour bake.

Method

1. Mix flour, cornmeal, water, yeast, salt and half the fat as oil. The dough should be stiff and not at all sticky.
2. Bulk until doubled, then roll out to a rectangle.
3. Spread the remaining fat as softened butter over the sheet, roll it up like a carpet, flatten, and coil it into a spiral.
4. Chill an hour. This lamination is what makes the crust flaky instead of merely thick.
5. Roll the coil out to a disc and press it into a buttered pan, up the walls to the rim.
6. Layer in order: sliced low moisture mozzarella against the dough, then raw sausage pressed flat, then vegetables, then crushed tomato, then grated parmesan.
7. Bake low and long, then rest ten minutes before cutting or it will slump.

Fermentation

Times are a guide. How to read the dough instead of the clock →

The bake

On top

Sauce

Hand-crushed tomato, barely seasoned, drained of excess juice, spread on last.

Cheese

Sliced low moisture mozzarella, laid flat, plus parmesan on top.

Toppings

Fennel sausage as a single pressed patty. That is the traditional build.

You got it right when A crust that flakes at the edge, holds two inches of filling, and stands up when cut.