Attempt at making "Casey's General Store" gas station pizza

[norma427]

Jake,

Welcome back!  All of your pizzas look tasty!!

Norma

[Chicago Bob]

Jake,

Welcome back!  All of your pizzas look tasty!!

Norma

     

[JalMot]

I'm sorry to resurrect this thread yet again (and if I'm out of order for doing so, someone please let me know), but I wanted to post my attempt at Casey's style pizza and ask a question. I've never posted on the forums before (outside of my introduction thread), but have been making pizzas since I was a teenager, and have tried tons of different styles. My go-to right now and for many years now has been NY style, but every so often I get the itch to try others.

Let me start by saying I live in Colorado, so I don't really have access to Casey's, but it's a rare craving I get nonetheless. My brother and his family lived in Iowa for a number of years and I was introduced to Casey's one time when I was out visiting them. I normally don't go for chain, or what I would consider "fast food" pizza, but for some reason I was hooked on this pizza the first time I ate it. I was not a member of the forums then, but would browse fairly regularly, and this thread happened to catch my eye one day. I followed it for a while back when there was a lot of activity, but for whatever reason I never made any attempts at recreating anything and kind of forgot about it after a while. I was traveling through Iowa again in October of last year and got to make a few stops at different Casey's stores along the way. Man that pizza was good.

I was thinking about that pizza the other night and remembered this thread. Needless to say, I ended up finally attempting the Casey's clone and used the second dough formulation from reply #161 on this thread (https://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=32972.msg338005#msg338005). I think it turned out pretty well for my first attempt, but was a little disappointed in the bottom crust. I have a non-treated, non-darkened, perforated aluminum cutter pan that I've used for the last few years and it's typically been great. But this time around the bottom didn't really brown outside of where the dough was exposed where the holes were, which surprised me. It wasn't under-done per se, just pretty soft and "anemic". Even though it's not been an issue with this pan before, I'm wondering if it's due to the fact that it's only regular (but fairly well seasoned) aluminum, instead of the darker, pre-treated stuff. I baked at 480 for about 9 minutes, so I'm hesitant to go longer than that for fear of burning the top. I baked in the center of my oven vertically, maybe I should have done it closer to the bottom?

Anyway, I'm overall pretty pleased with my first attempt, and I hope that I'll be able to work the kinks out eventually. I appreciate the effort that everyone has put into this thread and want to say thank you for helping me get closer to Casey's in Colorado than I'll likely ever be otherwise .

[Jakew81]

Seth
I am personally very happy to see your post.  I’m glad to see someone else trying to make this pizza.  Your pizza looks awesome, could really be from Casey’s.  I have actually seen real Casey’s pizza out in the wild that seems white and anemic but is actually fully cooked.  That being said I do believe the dark nonstick coating really does help with the bottom browning.  Perhaps moving lower in your oven with the pan you have may be worth trying.  I would love to see any further attempts and thank you for sharing your results.

[JalMot]

Jake,
Thanks for your feedback! I admittedly don't have as much experience with Casey's as you, so I hadn't considered this to be something of a "within normal range" deal with the bottom crust. I will definitely try going lower in the oven next time to see if that makes a difference. I haven't had a chance to make any more pizza since I last posted, but I will make sure to update after my next attempt.

[MinnesotaMan]

Hey Jake!

I tried the 2nd pizza recipe from post #161 and it turned it really great.   I have a kitchen scale and measured everything out to +/-0.05g

I used Sweet Diary Whey that I purchased on Amazon, andI had to put 2 tablespoons of extra water in the pizza when I made it.  I mixed it with a dough hook in my kitchenaid mixer for just over 5 minutes. It was just all crumbles until I added the water.

I tried it again just now for 2 pizzas. I had to add 2 extra tablespoons to the recipe again.  Maybe it's different with a mixer instead of a breadmaker?

I'll post my pictures of my first attempt later today.  I have them on my phone which I don't have on me right now.

Thanks for all your hard work!

[Jakew81]

Welcome to the forum, hope you stick around and learn some other new stuff as well!  I love to see people having success at this. I have come a long way since the beginning.  No longer using a bread maker.  But you are correct, at 50% hydration it is difficult to get this dough to come together. 55-56% is the sweet spot. Looking forward to some Pics!

[Rdbrown27]

This is not a first try, but definitely the best so far so I thought I would finally post it. I have modified the recipe a bit, mostly to reduce the amount of oil as it appears from the ingredient list posted by Casey's that the % of oil is less than sugar and whey. I also upped the hydration to 58%, again mostly just as a test this go around but it worked out pretty well. So my formulation was:

KABF: 100%
Water: 58%
Sugar: 5%
Sweet Dairy Whey: 4%
Oil: 3%
Salt: 2%
IDY: 1%

For a 14" pie I used 485g balls. This one was on day 4 of being in the fridge and was far and away better than the ones I baked off day 1.

The sauce has really been my biggest struggle in trying to replicate Casey's but this time I think I nailed it (even though I omitted an ingredient entirely, the garlic). My problem has been over doing it with the spices so I dialed it way back and it was something like:

100g Contadina paste
75g water
4g neutral oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
bare 1/8 tsp dried oregano
bare 1/8 tsp dried basil
bare 1/8 tsp onion powder

I baked at 475 in a Lloyd's 14" perforated aluminum cutter pan: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MDZXLJW/?tag=pmak-20

directly on a pre-heated baking steel for 6 minutes and then up on the top rack for the final 2 minutes.

Cheese is a whole milk mozz I found locally at whole foods- brand is "Il Giardino" which I found hard to find much information on googling.

Thanks y'all for the work on this thread!! I am from the midwest and when my wife and I go back home to visit we always have to stop at Casey's. My next step is to make one for my brother in law who is from Iowa to see if it passes the real test.

[Swamp]

This was a fun thread to read through.  I made pizzas at Casey’s back in the 90’s while in high school and college.  I can add a few details I don’t think I remember reading here.

The dough balls were dunked in Wondra flour as they ran thru the the sheeter.  I specifically remember the round blue cans of the stuff.  Back then, dough was made entirely from scratch.  Unfortunately I don’t remember the recipe.  I think it was supposed to cold ferment for 24 hours(ish).

We also shredded all our cheese.  They switched to preshredded shortly before I left.

When the pizza came out of the oven we immediately covered the whole top in paper towels to soak up the grease.  I don’t know if all stores did this, or if this was just a thing at our store.

Oddly enough, I remember the order of toppings for a taco pizza, probably because we made so many of them every night.

Refried beans straight from the can spread on the dough, followed by salsa, beef, then mozzarella cheese.  Cheddar cheese was added immediately after coming out of the oven.  Then lettuce, tomatoes and nacho chips.  We hand cut all our lettuce and tomatoes.

That’s what I remember.  Not sure if any of that will be useful to folks trying to make their own.  There are no less than 5 Casey’s within a 5 minute drive from my house so I’ve never tried to make my own version.

Brian

[politon]

This was a fun thread to read through.  I made pizzas at Casey’s back in the 90’s while in high school and college.  I can add a few details I don’t think I remember reading here.

The dough balls were dunked in Wondra flour as they ran thru the the sheeter.  I specifically remember the round blue cans of the stuff.  Back then, dough was made entirely from scratch.  Unfortunately I don’t remember the recipe.  I think it was supposed to cold ferment for 24 hours(ish).

We also shredded all our cheese.  They switched to preshredded shortly before I left.

When the pizza came out of the oven we immediately covered the whole top in paper towels to soak up the grease.  I don’t know if all stores did this, or if this was just a thing at our store.

Oddly enough, I remember the order of toppings for a taco pizza, probably because we made so many of them every night.

Refried beans straight from the can spread on the dough, followed by salsa, beef, then mozzarella cheese.  Cheddar cheese was added immediately after coming out of the oven.  Then lettuce, tomatoes and nacho chips.  We hand cut all our lettuce and tomatoes.

That’s what I remember.  Not sure if any of that will be useful to folks trying to make their own.  There are no less than 5 Casey’s within a 5 minute drive from my house so I’ve never tried to make my own version.

Brian

Great info. Love the mention of taco pizza. A Quad Cities original !!