On general principle I don’t review frozen pizza, they’re all bad, but that doesn’t stop me from eating them occasionally. The worst pizza is still better than the best cauliflower dish and they’re so darned convenient.
One thing that does fascinate me about frozen pizza, and indeed about any frozen food, is the money and research that goes into the technology to improve the product. Pizza, in particular, has always been problematic. Frozen bread is tricky to begin with, but add a layer of topping and the problem is multiplied.
I tried DiGiorno’s rising crust pizza when it first came out, and really wasn’t impressed. (I never had another.) But curiosity got the best of me the other day when I saw DiGiorno’s new microwave rising crust. (Cooking a frozen pizza in an oven is hard enough, a microwave adds yet another obstacle.)
Late last night, I tried the first of four that I bought on sale.
As you can see from the pictures, they’ve developed an upper ring that sits over the crust, presumably this helps crisp the crust, although my initial thought was that it might prevent it from drying out.
Normally my microwave cooks things faster rather than longer than the recommended cook time, however, I programmed it to cook the longest length of recommended time.
The result: The center of the pizza was still refrigerator cold, the outer crust was somewhat blackened and had the taste and consistency of dried-out Play-Doh.
It’s going to be tough getting through all four pizzas.