So who really made the best pizza of 2025? Was it the winner of the whole competition, or the highest scoring pizza in the final?
We did it a little differently this year by sharing the Doughstopper from our runner up before we shared our winner's, because we felt the highest scoring pizza of the weekend deserved the title of best pizza - and you can find Fordy's Persian pizza recipe here.
Even though Fordy's pizza topped the charts for the weekend, there's no mistaking that Lou's pizza is an absolute world-beater!
Taking inspiration from her recent move from London to Yorkshire, Lou sought out the finest local ingredients and focusing on sustainability and low road miles - music to our ears!
The pizza came together beautifully, with stunning balance between fatty, acidic and sweet elements... and was called...
"A Slice of the Yorkshire Moors"
This is another pizza where there's a fair amount of work in the prep, but trust us when we tell you it's 100% worth it!
A New York style dough with loads of fattiness from multiple Yorkshire cheeses as well as locally produced bresaola, perfectly balanced with acidity and sweetness in perfect measures.
Ingredients
- 1 x 270g NY style pizza dough ball, makes one 12in pizza
- Garlic & Pecorino cream - see method below
- Buffalo mozzarella
- Shepherds Purse Harrogate blue cheese - replace with local blue cheese
- Lishman’s bresaola - replace with local bresaola
- Home-pickled red onions - see method below
- Home-roasted balsamic beetroot - see method below
- Denholme Gate summer honey - replace with local honey
- Wild garlic cream - see method below
- Thinly sliced fresh Italian fennel, dressed in extra virgin olive oil
- Fresh thyme
Prep
Pizza Dough:
- NY style dough using the direct method:
- Ball weight 270g
- Flour mix: 95% 00 pizza flour, 5% whole wheat flour
- 63% hydration
- 3% salt
- 10% extra virgin olive oil
- 24h RT leavening
- CY setting - input your own room temperature for the correct yeast amount, can also adjust for IDY
- Due to the higher temps on the day of the competition, the dough was only bulk fermented for 1 hour at room temp before being balled and put into the fridge in individual oiled containers - to make at home, using PizzApp, input your room temperature to decide length of initial room temperature prove
- After approx. 24 hours cold fermentation, take the dough out of the fridge to come up to room temperature, around 4-6 hours.
Garlic & Pecorino Cream:
- Make a white sauce with garlic, salted butter, plain flour, milk, small grating of nutmeg, salt and pepper
- Once thickened, melt in lots of grated Yorkshire Pecorino and add cream, fresh thyme, salt and pepper to taste.
Home Pickled Red Onions:
- Thinly slice red onions and add to a jar with a clove of garlic and some fresh thyme
- Gently heat white vinegar, water, granulated sugar, and salt until sugar is dissolved
- Leave to cool slightly and then pour over the onions. Set aside to cool to room temperature, then store the in the fridge.
Home Roasted Balsamic Beetroot:
- Local beetroot, rubbed with olive oil and wrapped in foil, roasted in the oven for around 2 hours
- Dissolve sugar in balsamic vinegar over a high heat and reduce to a syrupy consistency
- Once beets are cool, remove skins and dice into small squares. Pour over the balsamic syrup and refrigerate once cooled.
Wild Garlic Cream:
- Local cream gently heated until just steaming
- Add frozen wild garlic and simmer until reduced, then add salt and lemon zest to taste - can replace the wild garlic with roasted garlic if out of season
- Blend and sieve for a smooth green cream - the mixture thickens further in the fridge.
Baking
To make the pizza:
- Stretch your doughball leaving a smaller cornicione than for Neapolitan style pizza
- Top with the garlic & pecorino cream and around 80g buffalo mozzarella, air dried in the fridge for at least 4 hours
- Bake on a pizza screen at around 320°C stone & air temperature
- Immediately after the bake, crumble over the blue cheese so it starts to melt into the pizza as you finish topping
- Once slightly cooled, sparingly add the balsamic beetroot, pickled red onions and dressed fennel, then add small dots of the wild garlic cream
- Finally, drizzle the honey over the top of the pizza, serve and enjoy!
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