Any way you slice it, Americans love their pizza! According to the NAPO, an average of 3 billion pizzas are sold in the U.S. each year. That’s approximately 46 slices of pizza eaten by each American, every year.
While toppings and crust thickness can be hotly debated issues, one thing almost everyone can agree on is that cheese is one of the cornerstones of a delicious gourmet pizza pie. It’s not just coincidence that almost every pizzeria including Sardella’s Pizza and Wings in Peoria uses the same type of cheese – mozzarella.
For years food scientists have been studying the use of low-moisture, part-skim mozzarella, the type used on most pizzas. While it’s clear to anyone who has ever made or reheated pizza that mozzarella is a smooth and easily melting cheese the researchers wanted to know why mozzarella, in particular, was favored among all other types.
Important Mozzarella Research
Researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand wanted to learn more about the chemical and physical properties of pizza. Their study posed the question “Why do different types of cheese look and taste different when they are baked?”
During the study cheeses included mozzarella, cheddar, edam, and gruyere were used to top pizzas, the baking process was recorded and then analyzed based upon the amount of browning, blistering, and oil content. Furthermore, water content and elasticity were tracked throughout the baking process. As different cheeses were tested it became clear that the more elastic, and less oily the cheese was to start with, the better its texture would be following the baking process. Among all the types of cheese tested, mozzarella best fit the ‘ideal’ cheese, being elastic, easily giving off moisture in the heat, and not producing a significant amount of oil when baked.
Mozzarella the Ultimate Pizza Cheese
The results of their findings were published in the August 2014 Journal of Food Science, from the paper ‘Quantification of Pizza Baking Properties of Different Cheeses, and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality’. Eventually, the research team would like to be able to use their findings to manipulate the properties of other foods, like making low-fat options taste and behave the same way as their full-fat counterparts.”
At Sardella’s Pizza and Wings we pride ourselves on using only the finest quality ingredients to create pizzas your family is sure to love. We invite you and your family to visit one of the 4 Valley Sardella’s Pizza and Wing locations, offering pizza delivery in Phoenix, Glendale, and Peoria. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yelp!
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