Detroit Style Pizza Recipe: Frico Crust, Brick Cheese

You tried a Detroit style pizza recipe. The crust came out dense without the chewy focaccia crumb, the cheese rim looked melted but never crisped into the caramelized frico edge, or the pizza stuck to the pan in a way that took two people and a butter knife to extract. Here is the resolved answer for Detroit style pizza, with the pan decision tree that matters most, the cheese substitution that actually works, and the frico crust mechanics explained.

TL;DR

• The pan matters more than anything. Dark anodized steel or aluminum at 10x14 inches is the answer. Lloyd Pans is the gold standard. 9x13 cake pan is a viable substitute. Glass and ceramic do not work.
• Wisconsin brick cheese is authentic. Best substitution: 50/50 low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella + mild Wisconsin cheddar.
• High hydration: 70% is the sweet spot. 65% is denser, 80% is focaccia territory.
• Bread flour, not all-purpose.
• Reverse order: pepperoni first (if using), then cheese pushed to the pan edges, then sauce in stripes on top.
• Frico crust: the caramelized rim of cheese where it touches the hot pan. The whole point of the style.
• Bake at 500°F for 12 to 15 minutes. Most home ovens can do this.
• What to skip: glass pans, pre-shredded mozzarella, sauce under the cheese, marinara from a jar.

What makes a Detroit style pizza

Detroit style pizza is a thick rectangular pan pizza with cheese spread to the very edges of the pan, sauce on top instead of under, and a signature caramelized “frico” crust where the cheese melts into the metal pan edge. It’s roughly the opposite of Neapolitan in every variable: thick instead of thin, square instead of round, sauce-on-top instead of sauce-under, baked in a deep pan instead of stretched onto a peel, ferments shorter, bakes longer. None of these are aesthetic choices. They all flow from a single fact: Detroit style was developed in a working pizzeria in the 1940s using repurposed industrial pans, and every element of the recipe is calibrated for what those pans do well.

The signature: rectangular pan, cheese-to-the-edges frico crust, sauce on top

Three things define Detroit style and only Detroit style:

1. Rectangular shape. Almost always 10x14 inches. The shape comes from the auto-industry steel pans Buddy’s Rendezvous originally used.
2. Cheese pushed to the edges. Most pizzas leave a half-inch crust border without cheese. Detroit pushes cheese OVER the dough and onto the pan edge itself. When the cheese melts against the hot metal, it caramelizes into a crisp rim called the “frico” crust. This is the most distinctive element of Detroit style.
3. Sauce on top. After cheese is in place and the pizza is built, sauce goes on as the last layer, applied in two or three parallel stripes (“racing stripes”) rather than spread evenly. The reverse order isn’t aesthetic; it exists because cheese must touch the hot pan to caramelize, and sauce-under-cheese would block that contact.

Where it came from (Buddy’s, 1946, auto-industry parts trays)

The style was invented at Buddy’s Rendezvous in Detroit in 1946. Owner Gus Guerra (later, his employees who took over the pizza side as Buddy’s Pizza in the 1950s) used rectangular dark blue-steel pans originally manufactured for the auto industry to carry drill bits and parts. The pans were deep, dark, and conducted heat aggressively. Brick cheese from Wisconsin was the standard regional cheese available cheap and in bulk. The reverse-order topping technique was developed because cheese spread faster to the pan edges than sauce did.

Detroit style stayed regional for 60 years. It exploded nationally in the mid-2010s when chains like Jet’s Pizza (Detroit-based) expanded, and food media (Serious Eats, Bon Appétit) began writing about it. Now it’s everywhere. Most “Detroit style” pizza outside Detroit is approximate; the authentic recipe is technique-specific and rewards close attention to the pan, the cheese, and the order of operations.

How it differs from NY and Neapolitan

We’ve covered the other two major American pizza styles in their own articles. Here’s the comparison most blogs skip:

If you’ve read our Neapolitan pizza dough article and our New York style pizza crust article, you’ll notice Detroit operates by completely different rules. Higher hydration, thicker crust, pan-baked instead of stone-baked, sauce on top instead of underneath. Detroit isn’t a variation on Italian pizza. It’s its own thing.

The pan question (and why it matters more than any other variable)

You can fix a hydration mistake. You can sub one cheese for another. You can adjust bake time. But if the pan is wrong, the frico crust will not happen, and you will not have made Detroit style pizza. You will have made thick rectangular focaccia with cheese.

The pan needs three properties: deep (1.5 to 2 inches deep), dark in color (absorbs heat), and conductive (steel, anodized aluminum, or cast iron, not glass or ceramic).

The Lloyd Pans 10x14 Detroit pan (the gold standard)

Lloyd Pans makes the pans used by most actual Detroit pizzerias including Buddy’s. The 10x14 anodized aluminum pan is $35-50 depending on size and finish. If you make Detroit pizza more than three times a year, this is the buy. It’s nearly indestructible (no non-stick coating to scratch), pre-seasoned, and produces frico crusts that match what you’d get at a Detroit pizzeria.

Anodized aluminum 8x10 (the affordable answer)

Several Amazon brands sell 8x10 anodized Detroit-style pans for $15-25. These work. The 8x10 is smaller than the 10x14 standard, so adjust dough weight down by about 30%. Anodized aluminum is dark and conducts heat well enough to develop a real frico crust.

9x13 cake pan or quarter sheet (the substitute that works)

A 9x13 inch dark aluminum cake pan works as a substitute. Quarter sheet pans (9x13) also work. The bake comes out close enough to true Detroit that most people won’t notice the difference. The shape is slightly different (more square), but the technique is the same.

Cast iron square or rectangular (works, different texture)

A 10x10 cast iron square works. The frico crust will be more aggressively crisp because cast iron retains heat longer than aluminum. The bottom of the crust will be crispier and possibly slightly more burnt-prone. Watch the bake carefully.

What never works

• Glass baking dishes (Pyrex, etc.), glass is a poor conductor of heat. The cheese won’t caramelize against the glass; you’ll get melted cheese with no crisp rim.
• Ceramic baking dishes (Le Creuset stoneware, etc.), same problem. Beautiful for casseroles, wrong for Detroit pizza.
• Light shiny aluminum, reflects heat instead of absorbing it. The crust stays pale.
• Non-stick pans with damaged coating, flakes off into food, frico won’t form on the bare metal patches.

If you only have glass or ceramic, make NY style or Neapolitan instead. Or wait until you can buy a $25 anodized pan from Amazon.

The cheese question

Wisconsin brick cheese is the authentic answer. It’s a semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese with a fat content (around 50%) and moisture profile that produces the buttery, slightly tangy frico crust the style is known for. If you live in or near the Upper Midwest, you can find it. Outside of that region, brick cheese is harder to source. Substitutions matter.

Wisconsin brick cheese (the authentic answer)

If you can buy it, do. The best brick cheese comes from Wisconsin (Wisconsin Cheese Mart, Henning’s, or local Wisconsin co-ops ship online). Block form, not pre-shredded. Cut into 1/2 inch cubes for Detroit pizza; the cubes hold their shape on top of the dough and melt into the frico crust as the bake progresses.

Mozzarella + cheddar (the substitution that works)

The best non-brick substitution is a 50/50 blend of low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella block + mild Wisconsin cheddar (or Monterey Jack). Both grated from blocks, not pre-shredded.

• Mozzarella provides the stretch and the bulk
• Cheddar/Monterey Jack provides the fat content for the frico crust browning

Why both? Pure mozzarella browns weakly because the fat content is too low. Pure cheddar gets too oily and the frico crust is greasy rather than crispy. The blend approximates brick cheese’s chemistry.

Mozzarella + Monterey Jack (second substitution)

If you can’t find good cheddar, Monterey Jack is the alternative. Same 50/50 blend, same result. Monterey Jack is slightly milder and slightly higher in fat than mild cheddar, so the frico crust comes out slightly buttery rather than slightly sharp.

Why pre-shredded mozzarella fails here more than any other style

Pre-shredded mozzarella has anti-caking agents (cellulose, potato starch, sometimes natamycin) coating each strand to prevent them from sticking together in the bag. These coatings interfere with melting. In most pizza styles you can taste a difference but can still get a decent result. In Detroit style, the anti-caking agents prevent the cheese from properly contacting the pan and properly caramelizing into a frico crust. The result is melted-but-not-browned cheese around the edge instead of the crispy rim. Always buy block cheese and grate it yourself for Detroit.

The dough (with weights)

For one 10x14 inch Detroit pan, you need about 600 grams of dough. The flour-to-water ratio is the most important variable.

Hydration: 70 percent is the sweet spot

We tested three hydration levels (with the help of comparing notes against Kenji’s testing at Serious Eats):

• 65% hydration: dense crumb, less open structure. Closer to a thick NY-style pan pizza. Easier to handle.
• 70% hydration: the sweet spot. Open crumb with a fine-medium bubble structure. Chewy without being gummy. Bakes through cleanly.
• 80% hydration: very open crumb, more focaccia-like. Hard to handle, sticky dough. Best when you have a lot of time for the dough to relax.

At Detroit pizza’s peak (the 1950s-60s at Buddy’s), hydration was likely around 60-65%; the modern adaptation has gone wetter as American home cooks have gotten more comfortable with high-hydration doughs.

Recipe below is at 70%. Multiply by 1.15 for 80% if you want focaccia-tier crumb.

Bread flour, not all-purpose

King Arthur Bread Flour (12.7% protein) is the right answer. The protein develops enough gluten to hold the high-hydration dough together during the 24-hour ferment and final proof. All-purpose flour (10-11% protein) produces a denser, weaker crust that doesn’t open up properly during the bake.

Sir Lancelot (high-gluten, 14%) works but is overkill; Detroit doesn’t need the structural support that NY-style does. Save Sir Lancelot for NY style.

Same-day, overnight, or 24-hour ferment options

• Same-day (2 hours bulk fermentation): workable, flat flavor. The dough hasn’t had time to develop wheat character.
• Overnight cold ferment (12-16 hours): meaningful step up. The dough handles better and has noticeably more flavor.
• 24-hour cold ferment: the sweet spot. Best of both: easy handling, deep flavor, predictable rise.
• 48+ hour cold ferment: marginal additional improvement. The fermentation past 24 hours hits diminishing returns for this style.

We recommend the 24-hour cold ferment. Same approach as our Neapolitan dough method, shorter than NY’s 48-72 hour optimum.

The recipe (for one 10x14 Detroit pan)

For 24-hour cold ferment, 70% hydration:

• 350g King Arthur Bread Flour
• 245g room temperature water (70% hydration)
• 7g fine sea salt (2%)
• 5g sugar (1.4%)
• 5g olive oil (1.4%) plus 15g for the pan
• 1g instant dry yeast (about 1/3 teaspoon)
• 350g cheese (brick, or 175g mozzarella + 175g cheddar)
• 150g pizza sauce (recipe below or store-bought, thick chunky variety)

Optional: 100g pepperoni (cup-and-char variety like Hormel Cup-N-Crisp), sliced or whole.

How to mix and ferment

The mix is similar to our Neapolitan and NY methods but the high hydration means we use a higher-tech mixing approach than hand-kneading.

1. Whisk salt and sugar into the water in a large bowl until dissolved. Add the 5g olive oil.
2. Add flour and mix by hand with a sturdy spoon or dough scraper until no dry flour remains, about 3 minutes. The dough will be shaggy and very wet.
3. Cover and autolyse 30 minutes.
4. Sprinkle yeast over the dough, pinch and fold for 2 minutes to incorporate.
5. Cover and rest 30 minutes.
6. Do 3 sets of stretch-and-folds, spaced 30 minutes apart. Each set: wet your hand, lift one side of the dough, stretch upward, fold over the center. Rotate the bowl 90°, repeat. Four folds per set.
7. Cover and refrigerate 24 hours.

How to press into the pan (and let it rise twice)

Detroit style requires a unique two-rise process in the pan because the high hydration makes the dough want to spring back during the first press.

First press

1. Oil the pan generously. 15 grams (about 1 tablespoon) of olive oil spread across the bottom and up the sides of the Lloyd Pan or substitute. The oil contributes to the bottom crust crisp and prevents sticking.
2. Turn the cold dough out into the pan.
3. Press the dough into the corners and edges with your fingertips. It will not fully cover the pan; the dough will spring back. That’s expected.

First rise (in the pan)

Cover the pan and let the dough rest 30 to 45 minutes at room temperature. The dough relaxes and the gluten loosens.

Final press to the edges

After the first rest, press the dough out again, this time to the full pan dimensions. Press into the corners, push to the edges. The dough should now stay where you put it.

Final rise

Cover and let the dough rise in the pan for another 1 to 2 hours, until it’s grown by about 50% in height. It should look puffy and aerated, with visible bubbles on the surface.

Building the pizza in reverse order

This is the part that feels backwards if you’ve only made round pizzas before.

Pepperoni first (if using)

If using pepperoni, distribute the slices directly on top of the risen dough. Press them down slightly so they sit just below the dough surface. The pepperoni fat renders into the dough during the bake, which adds flavor and prevents the toppings from sliding around.

You can also skip the pepperoni-under-cheese order and put it on top of the sauce at the end. The under-cheese order is more traditional.

Cheese to the edges (the frico moat)

Distribute the cheese (cubed brick, or grated mozzarella+cheddar) over the entire surface, including pushing some cheese over the dough and onto the pan edge itself. Press a small amount of cheese into the corners and along the long edges so it directly touches the pan.

This “cheese moat” at the pan edge is where the frico crust forms. Be generous; the cheese will melt down and adhere to the pan, not slide off.

Distribute the remaining cheese evenly across the interior. About 75% to the interior, 25% to the edges is a good ratio.

Sauce on top in racing stripes

Apply sauce to the top of the cheese in two or three parallel stripes (“racing stripes”) running the long direction of the pan. Each stripe should be about 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. Do not spread the sauce evenly; the stripes are part of the look.

This is the right amount of sauce: about 150 grams for a 10x14 pan. More sauce drowns the pizza and prevents the cheese from crisping properly.

The frico crust: what’s actually happening

The frico crust is the single thing that makes Detroit style pizza Detroit style, and it’s the result of a specific chemical reaction worth understanding.

When the pizza enters the oven, three things start happening at the cheese-pan contact zone:

1. Heat transfer through the metal pan. A dark, conductive pan reaches 350-400°F quickly and stays there. The cheese touching the metal hits the surface temperature within seconds.
2. Maillard browning of cheese proteins. Above ~280°F, the milk proteins (casein, whey) react with the lactose sugars in the cheese, producing the brown color and savory umami flavor of caramelized cheese. This is the same reaction that browns steak.
3. Fat rendering. The fat in the cheese (about 50% in brick, 30% in mozzarella, 35% in cheddar) melts and pools at the edge of the pan, where it crisps the dough below it into a fried texture.

The combination produces the lacey, brown, crackly cheese rim that distinguishes Detroit pizza from any other style. The pan has to be hot enough to drive Maillard browning quickly (which is why dark conductive metal matters). The cheese has to be in contact with the metal (which is why you push cheese to the edges and pre-shredded mozzarella with anti-caking agents fails). And the bake has to be long enough for the reaction to develop (which is why Detroit style bakes 12-15 minutes, not 90 seconds).

How to bake it

In a home oven at 500°F (the gold standard)

1. Preheat the oven to 500°F (or 525°F if your oven goes that high) with a rack in the upper-middle position. Preheat at least 30 minutes; the oven walls need to be fully heat-saturated.
2. Launch the built pizza into the oven on the middle rack.
3. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Start checking at 11 minutes. The pizza is done when the top is bubbly and golden brown and the cheese frico crust is visibly caramelized around the pan edge.
4. Remove from the oven and rest in the pan for 2 minutes. This lets the cheese set slightly so it doesn’t slide.
5. Run a knife or thin offset spatula around the edge to release the frico crust from the pan. Lift the pizza out with a wide spatula onto a cutting board.
6. Cut into squares (the traditional way) or rectangles. Detroit pizza is never cut into wedges.

With or without convection

If your oven has convection, use it. The forced-air browning helps the top of the pizza brown evenly. Reduce temperature 25°F when using convection (so 475°F instead of 500°F).

When to broil at the end

If your top isn’t browning evenly by minute 12, switch to broil mode for the last 60-90 seconds. Watch carefully; the cheese can go from golden to burnt in 30 seconds at broil temperatures.

What to skip

• Glass or ceramic pans. Won’t conduct heat fast enough for frico crust formation. Use steel, anodized aluminum, or cast iron only.
• Pre-shredded mozzarella. Anti-caking agents ruin the frico crust. Buy block cheese and grate it yourself.
• Marinara sauce from a jar. Marinara is too thin. Detroit sauce is a dense, sweet, chunky tomato sauce, often made with Wisconsin red sauce or similar tomato product. If using store-bought, choose a “pizza sauce” labeled as thick or chunky.
• Sauce-then-cheese order. Doing it in the standard pizza order completely eliminates the frico crust. Sauce on top is non-negotiable for Detroit.
• Olive oil drizzled on top of the cheese. Changes the bake and pushes the style toward Sicilian pan pizza, not Detroit.
• Rolling out the dough. Detroit dough is pressed, not rolled. Rolling kills the open crumb that the high-hydration ferment built.
• Substituting tipo 00 flour. Wrong flour for this style. Save 00 for Neapolitan; use bread flour for Detroit.
• Skipping the second rise in the pan. The two-press, two-rise process is what builds the open Detroit crumb. Trying to single-press a 70%-hydration dough won’t reach the pan corners.

FAQ

What is Detroit style pizza?

Detroit style pizza is a rectangular pan pizza with a thick, chewy, focaccia-like crust and cheese applied all the way to the pan edges, creating a caramelized “frico” rim of crispy cheese where it meets the metal. Sauce goes on TOP of the cheese in stripes, in reverse order from most other pizza styles. It originated at Buddy’s Rendezvous in Detroit in 1946, baked in repurposed steel auto-industry parts trays.

What’s the difference between Detroit style and regular pizza?

Three signature differences. Shape: rectangular, baked in a deep dark steel or anodized aluminum pan (typically 10x14 inches). Cheese application: pushed to the very edges of the pan to create a caramelized crispy frico rim. Sauce order: applied on top of the cheese, not under it. Detroit pizza also uses a much higher hydration dough (65 to 80 percent) than most pizza styles, giving it a focaccia-like crumb.

Do I need a special pan for Detroit style pizza?

For best results, yes. A Lloyd Pans 10x14 Detroit pan ($35-50) is the gold standard. An anodized aluminum 8x10 or 9x13 cake pan works as a substitute. A quarter sheet pan also works. What does NOT work: glass baking dishes (don’t conduct heat fast enough for frico), ceramic dishes (same issue), and light shiny aluminum (reflects too much heat). The pan must be dark and conductive enough to caramelize the cheese where it touches the metal.

What cheese is authentic for Detroit style pizza?

Wisconsin brick cheese. It’s a semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese, mild and slightly tangy, with a fat content that melts into the signature buttery frico crust when it hits the hot pan. If you can’t find brick cheese, the closest substitute is a 50/50 blend of low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella and mild Wisconsin cheddar (or Monterey Jack). The cheddar adds the buttery fat content brick cheese provides; mozzarella alone makes the frico crust less pronounced.

Why is the sauce on top of Detroit style pizza?

Two reasons, one practical and one structural. Practical: at Buddy’s Rendezvous in the 1940s, busy pizzaiolos applied cheese first because it was faster to spread to the edges, then sauce went on as the final flavor layer. Structural: putting sauce under the cheese would prevent the cheese from contacting the hot pan, which means no frico crust, which is the whole point of Detroit style. Sauce-on-top isn’t an aesthetic choice, it’s the only way the technique works.

Can I make Detroit style pizza in a regular pan?

Yes, with caveats. A 9x13 cake pan or quarter sheet pan made of dark anodized aluminum or steel works well. A cast iron square or rectangular pan works (different texture, more crisp). What does not work: glass, ceramic, or light shiny pans. The pan needs to be dark and conductive to caramelize the cheese where it meets the metal, which is the source of the frico crust. If your pan is the wrong material, you’ll get a tall focaccia-with-cheese rather than authentic Detroit style.

What’s next

Detroit is one of three major American pizza styles worth learning. We’ve now covered all three on the site:

• Neapolitan pizza dough, the Italian foundation, thin and round, 90-second bake at 900°F
• New York style pizza crust, the American adaptation, foldable and round, 8-minute bake at 525°F
• Detroit style pizza recipe, this article, rectangular pan pizza with frico crust, 13-minute bake at 500°F

If you’ve made one and want to expand, the others are different enough that they feel like new disciplines rather than variations on a theme. The technique you learned for Detroit (high-hydration dough, dark pan, frico crust) doesn’t transfer directly to Neapolitan. The technique you learned for Neapolitan (60% hydration, hand-stretching, 900°F bake) doesn’t transfer to Detroit. That’s the fun of regional pizza: each style is a separate world.

For broader pizza technique that supports all styles, see the dough and fermentation cluster. For oven and equipment decisions (Lloyd pan vs Ooni vs pizza steel), see the ovens and equipment cluster. For the sauce and cheese specifics that define each style, see the sauce and toppings cluster. For general technique like stretching, launching, and timing, see the technique cluster.