Chicago-Style Stuffed Pizza

I consider myself fairly adept at the art of pizza making. I can't remember the last time we ordered our for pizza. I just can't pay $10-$20 for something I know is simple, delicious and cheap to make right out of my own oven. Last week I was craving "Chicago Style" pizza. I looked on-line and discovered that I can order it frozen and delivered for about $20 (which my husband thought was outrageous, but I thought was a great deal). I opted, though, to give making it myself a shot first. There are only a handful of dishes I haven't been able to replicate to my satisfaction (like Buffalo Wings -- I just can't get those to work)and I was pretty sure I could handle a stuffed pizza.

I used this recipe with a few modifications. I did not use spinach. Instead I add more cheese and some pepperoni. I didn't have any crushed tomatoes on hand so I combined tomato paste with diced tomatoes. I did not have a 12 inch pan so I made 1.5 batches of the recipe in 2 9 inch circle cake pans. I had dough left over so I'm thinking I could use just a single batch of the recipe for the dough.

The result was very, very good! The recipe is spot on. I had a hard time getting the crust under the sauce to cook. The heat of the oven was so high that my edges were starting to burn, but the crust on top wasn't baked. Next time I'll bake the crust then add the sauce for the last 5-10 minutes. This pizza takes A LOT of filling. If you don't use the spinach, you'll need to add in a lot more cheese or some other filling. I made the 1.5 times the recipe for the filling, but that only filled 1 pizza. I was still pleased with the results and will definitely be making Chicago Style pizza again.