Giant pepperoni plus double pepperoni in the fresh pan style, with plump pillows of buttery dough and a golden brown outer crispiness.
We got in the National Pepperoni Pizza Day spirit a little early and had Papa Murphy's mouth watering pan pizza on Friday even though we were already planning a pizza tourism trip on Saturday. Wouldn't be the first time we had pizza two days in a row!
Papa Murphy's pan pizza is technically called Fresh Pan pizza according to their menu. This style has been one of our favorites since it was introduced in 2014. For the uninitiated, Papa Murphy's is a take-and-bake pizza that you pick up in the store but you cook it in your own oven. In the pan style, the bottom of the pan is coated in a buttery sauce and the dough plumps up and rises during cooking leaving a golden brown outside and plump airy inside. It's more pillowy than airy, it has a fair amount of heft to it even after cooking. It's a thick one that we usually eat with a fork.
Chris is turning into his dad and likes to joke on the phone "give me so much pepperoni that I might die, I want enough pepperoni to send me to the hospital." This time he went with "how much pepperoni can I get?" We ended up getting giant pepperoni + regular pepperoni, and then doubling the regular pepperoni.
In hindsight, we could have gotten too much pepperoni because it was actually more difficult to eat with this much pepperoni on it. We'd cut into it with the side of a fork, and the pepperoni would bend around the fork rather than moving out of the way. It's like the pepperoni was swallowing the fork and laughing at us.
The crust was superb as always, buttery, heavy, pillowy, puffy and plump. The pepperoni brought a good amount of grease. It's not that you couldn't eat it with your hands, but your TV remote would be slippery for days if you touched it after handling these slices.
The sauce is fairly light which keeps the toppings from sliding off. The sauce is on the sweet acidic side. The pepperoni is super thin cut and if you're lucky some of the pieces have turned to meat candy in the oven with crisp edges and a juicy middle that curl at the top like flower pedals.
The star of the show is obviously the pan crust that is like a butter sponge that feels indulgent without feeling gross. It's not just a hint of butter, in some bites you get the aroma of movie theater butter mixed with salty ultra thin pepperoni that is sometimes crackly crunchy on just the outermost edge. On the upper rim there is a thin ridge of burnt crispiness around the top of the pan.
Next time we'll skip the giant pepperoni and just get the double pep like we usually do.