Gluten Free Mini Detroit Pizzas

Eight personal GF Detroits in a mini loaf pan, double-wave mini pepperoni, every piece a corner piece.

Time: 3 hr | Yield: 8 mini Detroit pizzas | Difficulty: Intermediate | Serves: 4 | Published: 2026-07-24

Detroit pizza, gluten-free, in mini loaf pan form: eight personal pizzas with their own frico edges, because the corner piece is the best piece and now every piece is a corner piece.

The dough is the King Arthur GF batter approach, 40-gram portions pressed into buttered wells, risen until they're halfway to three-quarters up the sides, then par-baked and cooled on a rack. The topping phase is pure Detroit: butter the wells again, sauce, pecorino, cheese pressed to the edges, and mini pepperonis in two waves, half before, half added at the midpoint so the second batch cups and crisps instead of burning.

These are built for parties and picky kids, and nobody will believe they're gluten-free.

Ingredients

Ingredients

Topping

Directions

  1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
  2. Then add your wet ingredients. Mix with a rubber spatula for several minutes and try to smooth out any clumps. It will be paste-like.
  3. Spray your mini loaf pan with olive oil.
    You'll know it's right: 40 grams per well, a scale keeps all eight even so they bake on the same clock.
  4. Oil or wet your hands and to pinch off about 40g of dough, and place in each slot in the mini loaf pan
  5. Press each piece of dough evenly across the bottom of each well slot in the pan.
  6. Cover with plastic for about two hours so the dough can rise. (keep an eye on it, sometimes will rise faster than other)
  7. *We want the dough to rise about halfway to 3/4ths up the side of the pan"
    You'll know it's right: The rise is done when the dough sits halfway to three-quarters up the pan walls, watch it, it can move fast.
  8. Preheat your oven at 500 degrees for an hour.
  9. Par bake the dough for six minutes.
    You'll know it's right: Par-bake to set, about six minutes, then the rack rest keeps the bottoms from steaming soft.
  10. Remove from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes.
  11. Mini Detroit Pepperoni Pizzas
  12. Melt butter and use a brush to coat every surface of the pan wells.
    You'll know it's right: Brush butter on every surface of every well, it's the frying fat for eight little crusts.
  13. Place your par baked dough in each well.
  14. Spoon on a tablespoon of pizza sauce
  15. Sprinkle of pecorino romano
  16. Sprinkle cheese in each well (about half a cup).
  17. Use half a bag of mini pepperonis (save other half for later)
  18. Into the oven for 10-12 minutes
    You'll know it's right: The halfway pepperoni add is the trick: wave one melts in, wave two cups and crisps on top.
  19. Halfway through, remove from the oven and apply the other half of the bag of pepperonis.
  20. Remove from oven, let cool in the pan for several minutes so the edges can firm up.
    You'll know it's right: Several minutes in the pan lets the cheese edges firm and release. Early extraction tears the frico.
  21. Finish with Parmigiano Reggiano and enjoy!

Troubleshooting

They stuck in the wells

Butter coverage had gaps. Melted butter, brushed on every surface of every well, both rounds. It's release AND flavor.

Dense little bricks

Rushed the rise. Halfway to three-quarters up the walls before the par-bake. In a cold kitchen that can take longer than two hours.

Pepperoni burned

All of it went on at the start. Half at the start, half at the midpoint. The recipe splits the bag on purpose.

Soggy bottoms

Skipped the rack rest after the par-bake. Cool the par-baked bases on a wire rack. Steam escapes down, crunch stays.

Uneven batch

Eyeballed the dough portions. 40 grams each on a scale. Even portions, even bake, eight identical corner pieces.

Nutrition (2 mini pizzas): 380 calories, 15g protein, 40g carbs, 18g fat.