During the first week of class, we tried 3 types of pizza. We were told to use the descriptive list of words from the wall as a resource to write our own review of the types of pizza in comparison to one another. I thought this would be a piece of cake. I've always been said to have sensitive taste buds, and this was my chance to show off, in at least one class this year.

For once, I am struggling to find the words to say. I have grown up using good, great, yummy, icky, grody, gross! and delicious. But I'll try my best to describe my lovely experiences with foods while I am enrolled in this class.

We first sampled the homemade pizza, with the cornmeal crust and perfectly melted cheese. It looked lovely, with the little spices on top and the cheese a lovely golden with touches of golden-brown from the warmth of the oven. It was savory in taste, to begin with. It had a rich and soft texture with a just crunchy enough crust and a grainy bottom with cornmeal grains in yellow. The aroma was lovely; a rich and strong sensation that I could hardly wait to taste. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. The pizza had a flavorful taste, with some added spices on top for added richness and depth of taste. The savory taste was astounding, and I really enjoyed the slight wheaty undertone taste from the cornmeal.

Next came the pizza with a crust from a bag. This was my favorite, though the homemade was right up there alongside. The pizza looked the same as the homemade, without the cornmeal embedded in the crust. The taste was savory and slightly, enough to make my mouth tingle with flavor. The cheese was gooey, just the way I like it, and the crust  crisp and thick in an appetizing and appealing way. The aroma was a pleasant scent that reminded me of the restaurant where I had the best pizza of my life in Phoenix, Arizona; "Coach & Willie's". Both pizzas alike had a rich scent, clearly of the crust and melted cheese in a pleasant, welcoming way.

The freezer pizza was a sad disappointment. The aroma was nonexistent until I was 6 inches away (and wasn't even good then), and the texture was that of brittle with a thin layer of rubber covering it. Or in this case, processed cheese. I was glad this piece was so thin and easy to get a quick taste of. It tasted the way it looked; close to burnt and overbaked. The cheese was an unappealing orangey-brown, and the crust a sickly pale piece of what I felt had the texture of a pita chip. There was not that much to blog about, as it was a major let-down in pizza. My only consolation for this slice was getting to eat more of the from-a-bag and homemade pizza after I wrote down my thoughts on it.

All in all, this was a great experience, and I hope I get the chance to do another comparison test in the near future, preferably of brownies. Yum! Ooops, I mean, silky richness with a mouth-watering choclate smell!!! :)

Kendra Hour 1

Pizza Critique

During the first week of Baking and Pastry we did an experiment on different types of crusts. So we tasted three different types of crusts. One was thin crust from a frozen pizza, another was crust made from a bag package and the last was homemade white crust. All three pizza only had tomato sauce and cheese topping.

Frozen Thin Crust Pizza

I didn't really enjoy the crust on this pizza. I generally do not like eating thin crust pizzas. It was extremely dense and dry. It was more of a cracker than it was a pizza crust, if anything. It had too much crunch when I bit into it, I like a little crunch but not  like the one I had when eating this. A good thin crusted pizza should have some fluff and softness to it, not like this frozen pizza. There was scarce tomato sauce between the hard browned cheese on top, it did no help from balancing the dryness of the crust. Eating this pizza made me less of a fan of thin crust than I was before. 

Crust from a Bag Pizza

The second pizza I tried out was the pizza from the bag. The crust came out with a grey hue in its color, it wasn't as appealing as it could have been. The crust was crunchy outside and soft inside but was very bland. I couldn't taste much, it pretty much tasted like nothing, there wasn't much flavor going on in the crust. The cheese and sauce didn't do much help in adding flavor. If your looking for a blast of flavors in your mouth, this pizza isn't for you!

Homemade Crust Pizza
The homemade crust pizza had a golden brown crust and cheese. This pizza was most appealing to the eyes. Just by looking at the crust you could tell that there was a small crunch to it. The crust was light and fluffy on the inside, as a crust should be. There wasn't much tomato sauce on the slice I had, so it tasted more like bread with cheese. What I didn't like was the huge amount of cornmeal on the bottom of the crust. It gave a grainy texture and I felt like I tasted more of that than the actual crust.

Out of all the three, I liked the homemade crust pizza the best. The crust wasn't a cracker or and ugly shade. Although there was a lot of cornmeal at the bottom, I would rather have that than the frozen pizza and crust from a bag!

Pizza Critique Hour 1 Mara Klipfel

In my opinion the homemade pizza was the best. It had a nice, firm, crisp crust with an interesting texture due to the cornmeal on the bottom of the pizza. As for the sauce, it had a nice spice to it as well as having a smooth texture. This pizza was extremely cheesy and the cheese was melted to perfection. It covered the whole top of the pizza as well as it being slightly browned, which I tend to like. Every ingredient worked together like a team and overall tasted the best. My least favorite pizza was the frozen pizza. One word to describe it is BLAND. The flavor just didn't do it for me; the crust was limp and somewhat soggy. The cheese was just plain burnt and the sauce had no flavor except for being a little tangy which was weird. The bag crust pizza tasted and smelled the same as the homemade crust, but the texture wasn't as good. The crust was soggier than the homemade pizza which is why I enjoyed it less than the homemade crust. I absolutely love pizza so whenever I find a pizza I like, I stick with it. I wish I could bake, but a lot of times I end up burning whatever I’m making. So I would love to be able to go home and just whip up a pizza, but that probably won’t be happening. All in all, I enjoyed the homemade and the bag crust pizza, the only thing that separated then was a slightly crispier crust.

Pizza Critique

"Dat Pizza"

In class we taste tested three different types of pizza. A frozen one, one from a bag, and a homemade pizza. Out of all three of the pizzas, I would have to say the frozen one looked and tasted the worst. It was bland, looked old, and seemed artificial. It was the darkest brown out of the three pizzas. The texture wasn't all that great either. It was hard and very thin and to be honest. I couldn't even smell it. The next pizza I tried was the pizza from a bag. This one was much better than the frozen one because the cheese actually looked like cheese and it was actually melted. This pizza was golden brown and you could actually see the spices on it. The aroma was also very pleasant.  Although it did look a bit oily, the taste made up for it. The texture was soft and consistent. It had a salty, cheesy, fresh taste to it. The pizza that I thought had the best taste was the homemade pizza. It was moderately thick and had the perfect amount of crispiness on the bottom crust. Just like the pizza from a bag, this one tasted cheesy, salty, and very fresh. The cheese looked very yellow and the crust was brought to a nice golden color. This pizza smelt like it had a bunch of fresh ingredients which is good. In the end, the overall best pizza was the homemade pizza.

Pizza Critique (Emily)

We had a taste test of three different kinds of pizza. One was Homemade White Crust Pizza, another was Pizza from a bag mix, and the last was Frozen Pizza. We critiqued on the texture, taste, color, aroma, overall appearance, and overall acceptibility. For the texture, there was a grading scale of 1=very hard, 2=slightly hard, and 3=soft. The grading scale for the taste through overall acceptibility was 1=not acceptable, 2=moderately acceptable, and 3=very acceptable.

Homemade White Crust Pizza:

• Texture
• 3; perfectly soft, to the softness that I love on pizzas
• Taste
• 3; the flavor was great
• Color
• 2; it was golden around the edges, and the cheese was golden yellow
• Aroma
• 2; the smell was not great, but it was better than the other two pizzas' smells
• Overall Appearance
• 2; the pizza looked extremely appealing because of the golden color that it took on
• Overall Acceptibility
• 2; this was the best one of the three
• Description
• There was just enough cheese and sauce to balance each other very well. The taste was awesome and the appearance was great.

Pizza from a Bag Mix

• Texture
• 3; very soft crust, almost too soft
• Taste
• 2; there was a strong seasoning flavor
• Color
• 2; the color was a golden color, but not as nicely golden as the homemade pizza
• Aroma
• 2; the aroma was not very appealing, and it did not make me want to eat it right away
• Overall Appearance
• 2; more appealing than the frozen pizza
• Overall Acceptibility
• 2; Pretty acceptible, more so than the frozen pizza
• Description
• Golden, cheese well melted, not the best smell, and very soft

Frozen Pizza

• Texture
• 2; Crispy, I am not a fan of super crispy pizzas
• Taste
• 2; flavor was good, but not great or phenomenal by any means
• Color
• 2; the color was very dull. There was no golden color that would be appealing in most pizza
• Aroma
• There really was no smell to the pizza
• Overall Appearnace
• 2; the appearance was not very appealing because of the dullness of the color
• Overall Acceptibility
• 2, the overall pizza was not very acceptible. I would not go out and buy it any time soon
• Description
• Melty cheese, good flavor, crispy, good amount of sauce on the pizza

The overall best pizza in my opinion was the homemade white crust pizza because of the appearance and flavor. I would love to get the recipe and go home and make it soon!

Emily Theis

Pizza tasteing:)

Pizza of coarse is one of everyones many favorites in america! There are soo many different ingredients, styles, types, and flavors incorporated in them! miss Wilson (of shakopee High school) had our baking and pastries students do a little compare and contrast to really help us understand the differences in how three types of pizzas were made. One pizza was a homemade pizza made with cornmeal crust. I gave the texture a 2, the dough was crunchy yet soft. The crust didnt completley take over the flavor of the pizza. The taste had a beautiful combination or herbs and spices, and the cornmeal for me did leave a pretty desirable taste in my mouth. The pizza itself had a perfect tinted golden brown crust and the top ingredients were blended harmoniously together. The aroma was like an ordinary delicious pizza. But over all, this pizza was my favorite of the three. The next pizza i tasted was from pizza in a bag! The crust was soft, and the cheese and crust blended well together, however i noticed that the ingredients were unnoticeable compared to the overbearing crust. The taste was garlicy, a bit oily, but very cheesy! I gave this pizza an overall acceptability of 2. lastley, the frozen pizza. This was the most crunchy of all three pizzas. ironically, the crust was also the thinnest! it was almost as if the crust and the sauce were the only used major ingredients on the pizza. it had a fresh yet greasy taste. The color was a deep brownish red, and it had a very buttery and herbal aroma. I gave this pizza an overall grade of a 2 also.

All three pizzas were utterly-divine! The pizza from a bag was delicous as the crust and cheese were compatible. The frozen pizza was my least favorite due to the overlapping, far too crunchy crust flavor! The homemade pizza was my favorite as the blending of spices and flavoring added to the cornmeal crust had a very at-home, delicious taste and texture!

Pizza Critique

     There are many types of pizzas in this world. The three I tried in class were homemade, from a bag, and frozen. The homemade pizza won by a long shot. The thick crust had the perfect consistency and crispiness. It was seasoned to perfection and had a soft but delicious texture. The golden cheese on top was done just right. The pizza from the bag didn't compare to the homemade pizza, but it was still acceptable. It also had a soft and airy crust but it wasn't nearly as crispy as the homemade pizza. On top of the orange-ish yellow cheese was a layer of grease that looked a lot less appealing to me. The overall texture of the pizza was quite spongy, but as for taste, it was still quite yummy. Now for the disaster of the frozen pizza. Although it had a very crispy and thin crust, it tasted like dry and salted cardboard. The smell was just as gross, as it reminded me of dog food. This pizza was absolutely unacceptable and it would be the last pizza I would choose over anything.