You know I am always in search of excellent thin crust (crispy) pizzas, and the new offering from DiGiorno sounded promising. After all, any time I have had a flat-bread pizza in a restaurant, it’s been very crispy – cracker-like, which is what I prefer. It took me awhile to find DiGiorno’s “meat” offering (pepperoni and fire-roasted bell peppers), every store I have checked at for weeks had nothing but the varieties that had chicken toppings, which I will never buy (fowl on pizza is foul, IMHO). I don’t know if the “shortage” is due to the popularity of the meat ones, or a push on the chicken. No matter.
Out of the box, the pizza appeared to have promise, pretty adequate toppings, and the crust looked thin enough to meet my taste. The “test” for me has always been to pick up a triangle-shaped slice, and it the narrow end doesn’t bend, that’s CRISP!
The instructions for DiGiorno called for 10-12 minutes @ 400, center shelf. But for me, today, even 25 minutes @ 425 didn’t crisp up the pizza. (yes, my oven is calibrated). So I thought, w
ell, maybe it “crisps up” after it comes out of the oven, like some frozen baked products, but no such luck. It was a disappointment. The “bend” took place when picking up a slice, but thankfully the toppings don’t slide off onto the plate like some pizzas do. The finished product is pictured, but I have added some toppings (olives, additional meat) (not during the cooking cycle, so that didn’t affect that.
So for my money, the California Pizza Kitchen thin crust Sicilian still rules in this category, even tho I don’t care for their product in the restaurants, the frozen one suits me, for crispness and it’s herby flavor. But they are chintzy on the toppings.