Published: 2026-03-20 | 10
Plain cheese is the hardest pie to do well. Nowhere to hide. No pepperoni grease to cover up a dry bake. No toppings disguising an under-fermented dough. Just flour, water, tomato, cheese. Four things. Every single one has to be right. If you want to know if a pizzeria is legit, order the plain cheese and watch what happens.
I put up the full video on YouTube with running commentary, but I also wanted to write it out, because when you see it on a plate and read why every call was made, it clicks in a way watching alone doesn't. This is the A-to-Z.
I almost always say 48-72 hours is the window. For this pie I went the full 72. The reason: plain cheese has nothing else carrying it, so the dough flavor has to step up. More fermentation = more flavor compounds + a lighter crumb + better digestibility. At 72 hours in the fridge you get that tangy, sourdough-adjacent note that people can't place but always compliment.
500g King Arthur bread flour, 315g water (63%), 10g salt, 2g instant yeast, 15g olive oil, 5g sugar. Same as my standard NY Slice. Mix, rest, three stretch-and-folds, ball, cold ferment 72 hours.
Most recipes say 'pull the dough an hour before baking.' I pulled this one two full hours. The longer warm-up gave the dough a little extra rise and made it more extensible, meaning it stretches without fighting back. Cold dough tears; room-temp dough flows.
Bianco DiNapoli whole peeled. Opened the can, drained about 2 tablespoons of juice off (too much liquid = soggy pie), hand-crushed the rest in a bowl. A teaspoon of salt, a pinch of sugar (optional but it rounds out acidic tomatoes), a tablespoon of olive oil. That's it. No garlic. No oregano. No cooking.
Cooked sauce is for Sicilian, Detroit, and anywhere else the sauce bakes again on the pizza. For NY style, the pizza bake IS the cook. If you pre-cook the sauce AND bake it on the pie, you end up with reduced-twice tomato that tastes flat.
Here's the move for cheese pizza: don't use one cheese. A three-cheese blend landed best, low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella as the baseline (Grande or Polly-O, always hand-shredded, never pre-shredded), fresh mozzarella torn and drained on paper towels for creamy white pools, and a small amount of Fontina for depth. Microplaned Parmigiano-Reggiano goes on AFTER the bake. The full recipe with exact weights and step-by-step method is in my <a href='/recipes/perfect-plain-cheese-pizza'>NY slice recipe</a>.
The low-moisture mozz is the baseline, the stretch, the browning, the classic pizza cheese behavior. Fresh mozz adds creaminess and those white pools in the melt. Fontina brings a deeper, more umami-forward note that elevates a plain cheese pie from 'good' to 'why does this taste amazing?'
Never use pre-shredded cheese. It's coated in cornstarch and cellulose to prevent clumping, and those coatings prevent proper melt. Shred your own. Takes 90 seconds.
Fourteen inches. Floured the ball heavy (both sides), pressed the center out leaving a thick rim, then lifted it onto my knuckles and let gravity do the rotation. Aiming for a thin but not translucent middle. If I can see the counter through the center, I've stretched too thin.
I made a note in the video: if the dough fights you, let it rest. Dough that won't stretch is telling you the gluten is too tight. Walk away for 5 minutes, come back, it'll behave.
On a floured peel, not the counter, peel first keeps the pizza movable. Build order: sauce first (about 1/3 cup, spread with the back of a ladle in a spiral, leaving a half-inch rim), then low-moisture mozz scattered evenly, then fresh mozz in smaller torn bits interspersed, then Fontina last and sparingly for pockets of depth. Before launching, shake the peel, if the pizza doesn't slide freely, add more flour underneath immediately or you'll rip the pie when you try to launch.
Baking Steel top rack, oven at 550°F plus broiler on low, preheated an hour full. Launch clean with one decisive push. Seven minutes. Rotated 180 degrees at the halfway mark (some ovens have hot spots, mine does). Pulled when the rim was leopard-spotted and the cheese had just started getting brown freckles.
If you pull it when the cheese still looks pale, it tastes raw. If you wait until the cheese is deep brown everywhere, you've burnt the bottom. Freckles, not blanket. That's the target.
Olive oil drizzle, extra virgin, good stuff. Torn fresh basil. Another hit of microplaned parm. Let it rest 90 seconds on a rack before cutting. This rest is non-negotiable, cut too early and the cheese pools and runs, texture ruins, cheese sticks to the box instead of the crust.
Cut eight ways. Ate the first slice standing up at the counter. That's the ritual.
Honestly? Discipline. Nothing I did on this pizza was new. The 72-hour ferment, the cheese blend, the hand-crush sauce, all stuff I've talked about in shorts. But I didn't cut any corners on this one. I didn't pull the dough early. I didn't use pre-shredded cheese because I was too lazy to shred. I didn't rush the rest before cutting.
Pizza is a compounding discipline. Every step you half-ass costs you 5%. Ten steps at 95% = 60% of what you could've made. Ten steps at 100% = the best cheese pizza you've ever made. That's the whole lesson.
Low-moisture mozz alone will make a great pizza. Adding fresh mozz is a noticeable upgrade. Adding fontina is the 'holy crap' step. Work up as you have the ingredients.
Move the steel to the middle rack, use the broiler on high for the first two minutes, then switch to bake at 500°F for the remainder. Total bake time goes from 7 minutes to 9-10. Watch the bottom, it can scorch with the broiler on.
For NY-style dough in a home oven, 63% is the sweet spot, high enough for an open crumb and flavor development, low enough to handle and stretch without fighting you. Neapolitan goes higher (65-70%). Bar pie goes lower (55-60%). Each style has its range.
You can, use the bar pie recipe. It's a same-day dough and still great. But for a plain cheese pizza that impresses, the 48-72 hour ferment is where the flavor comes from. There's no shortcut.