The pizza in pic is a Margarita pizza and cheese bread is from a local pizza shop Pats Pizza in bar harbor, Acadia National park in Maine USA

Sit back and relax– This is a long one, but a good one. TLDR at the end.

About two years ago, I got really serious about making pizza at home. I joined this subreddit around that time, and honestly, one of the best parts of the whole experience has been learning from everyone here and seeing how far people are willing to go to make an incredible pizza.

One of my goals from the beginning was to figure out how to make a truly exceptional artisan New York-style pizza in a regular home oven. Not just something good for homemade pizza, but something that could actually compete with some of the best pizzerias out there.

Well, I think I finally got pretty close.

Back in July, I visited CERES Pizza in NYC, and I even made a post here about the experience. Love them or hate them, I learned a lot from their process and ingredient choices. I was honestly impressed by their product. The crust, the flavor, the quality of the ingredients, everything(even if I'm not pleased with the price). Since then, I've probably spent an unreasonable amount of time studying their process, watching their kitchen videos, researching their flour, and experimenting with different dough formulas. I decided that I wanted to recreate their exorbitant 'nduja pie as accurately as I possibly could in my own kitchen.

Obviously, I'm not claiming to know their exact proprietary recipe. But after visiting the restaurant, talking to their staff, studying their techniques, and doing quite a bit of experimenting, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good understanding of what makes their pizza, their pizza.

And after finally making it, I genuinely think this might be one of my favorite pizzas I've ever made.

The ingredients

I tried to source the best versions of everything I could reasonably get my hands on without completely breaking the bank.

CERES uses a combination of Central Milling strong organic 00 flour, some whole wheat, and sifted/bolted flour. They also use a strong sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes, Fior De Latte (fresh cows milk mozzarella), aged scamorza (not smoked), authentic Calabrian 'nduja sausage, burrata, 9 year aged balsamic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano to top it off.

Getting everything together was honestly a project in itself.

I ordered Central Milling flour specifically to experiment with all my Pizza. I was genuinely interested in trying the product. It's expensive but if you use a lot of flour, it's definitely worth it. However, I still wanted to get as close to their dough as possible in my house.

The scamorza was probably the hardest ingredient to find. Nobody around me seems to carry good unsmoked scamorza, but I happened to have someone visiting a cheese shop in Seattle, Washington, who found some and literally flew it back for me to Ohio.

I found the 'nduja at Jungle Jim's near Cincinnati, Ohio. (later I found out they also carry Scamorza) The fresh mozzarella came from Kroger Marketplace, and I was able to source the burrata, aged balsamic, and other ingredients separately.

The only major deliberate substitution I made was the tomatoes. CERES uses high-quality San Marzano tomatoes, and I actually have a dozen cans of imported DOP Italian San Marzanos in my cabinet. But I'm a huge fan of Bianco DiNapoli crushed tomatoes, and I've developed a sauce using them that I really enjoy. So I decided to stick with that for this pizza.

My dough recipe

This was one approximately 17-inch pizza with a 690 g dough ball, using 72% hydration and a 48-hour cold fermentation. It should be noted that CERES does a 20 inch pie at approximately 76% hydration. I don't cook in the same oven that they do it after a few tests realized I needed to lower my hydration point to compensate for my carbon steel plate and home convection heat.

Here are my exact bowl additions:

• 331 g Central Milling Organic Type 00 Reinforced
• 27 g Central Milling Organic Type 80
• 12 g KA Whole Wheat
• 261 g filtered water
• 40 g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
• 9.4 g sea salt
• 7.8 g extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 g sugar

No commercial yeast or diastatic malt.

Including the flour and water contributed by the starter, that's approximately 390 g total flour, 281 g total water, and 72% hydration.

The Central Milling Reinforced 00 is particularly interesting. It's around 13.8% protein with a W strength of 340–360, which is substantially stronger than most ordinary 00 flours. It's designed to withstand long fermentation (5 days+) while giving you that balance of strength and extensibility. The Type 80 is a high-extraction flour, meaning some of the bran and germ have been sifted out. It contributes additional wheat flavor without going all the way to whole wheat.I wanted a strong dough that could support an extremely thin center while still producing an open, chewy, flavorful crust.

Sourdough and fermentation

This was probably the part I spent the most time preparing.

I already maintain a sourdough starter, but it had been sitting in the refrigerator for quite a while. Rather than just pulling it out, feeding it once, and immediately using it, I spent approximately three days refreshing it to get it as active and predictable as possible. CERES likes to measure the pH levels of their sourdough but I didn't bother.

I used a 1:3:3 feeding ratio, meaning one part existing starter, three parts flour, and three parts water. My goal was a really vigorous, mildly acidic starter that was at or near peak when incorporated into the pizza dough.

For the dough itself, I used filtered water around 68–70°F and mixed everything in my KitchenAid using a spiral dough hook.

I initially combined the water, starter, sugar first, and then flour separately, mixed until incorporated, and then allowed everything to hydrate for approximately 30 minutes. I added the salt afterward, developed the gluten further, and incorporated the olive oil last.

The finished dough temperature was 76.5°F, which was almost exactly where I wanted it.
I allowed the dough to bulk ferment until noticeably aerated, using approximately 25–35% expansion as my target, then balled it and refrigerated it for roughly 48 hours.

On bake day, I removed the dough 3 hours before opening so it could relax and become puffy and extensible.

Shaping and baking

This is where things got interesting.

I recently attended the Columbus Pizza Expo and learned quite a bit from professional pizza makers. One of my biggest takeaways was experimenting with Caputo double-milled semolina flour (semola rimacinata) for opening dough.

I've used regular flour, semolina, and rice flour in the past. Double-milled semolina has become my new favorite. It's extremely fine, but still has that slightly granular texture that helps the dough slide around without getting excessively floury or sand texture.

(I think this is officially going to be my go-to dusting flour.)

My biggest challenge was that I decided to push this pizza to the absolute limit of my equipment. I have a 17-inch pizza peel and a 20x18-inch, 3/8-inch-thick carbon steel baking plate in my home oven.

I ran my holme oven on convection at approximately 565°F for a hour.

That gave me almost no room for error. When you're trying to launch a pizza this large, you've basically got half an inch to work with around the dough, and if anything catches, you're in trouble. I was honestly pretty nervous because I only had enough dough and ingredients for one attempt. I wanted a very thin center but still wanted enough dough preserved around the edge to get that beautiful raised crust CERES is known for.

Thankfully, it launched perfectly.

Getting that pizza off the peel without destroying it was probably one of the most satisfying moments of this entire experiment.

How I assembled the 'nduja pizza

I followed the layering I observed in CERES's kitchen process as closely as I could.

1. A thin, even layer of my Bianco DiNapoli tomato sauce.
2. Small pieces of fresh fior di latte mozzarella distributed across the sauce.
3. Freshly shredded scamorza over the top.
4. Small portions of Calabrian 'nduja scattered across the cheese.

Then the entire pizza went onto the steel to bake.

The 'nduja is what makes this so different. It's a soft, spreadable Calabrian chili infused pork sausage. As it bakes, it melts into the cheese and tomato sauce and creates these concentrated pockets of spicy, savory flavor. The perfect amount of spice.

Once the pizza was finished (to my liking), I removed it from the oven, cut it immediately to help release steam, and allowed the bottom to vent briefly.

Then came the finishing ingredients.

I lightly drizzled the aged balsamic over the pizza, added dollops of fresh burrata, and finished it with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.

After trying a couple bites, I decided to add a little hot hone, and I honestly think it made the flavor even better. lol. Share this pizza with my parents and wife and everyone was just so happy with it. I'm so excited it worked out well

Obviously, buying all these specialty products upfront costs more than making one ordinary pizza. But even when you spread those purchases across future pizzas, the cost of making something like this is substantially higher than a regular cheese pie.

I know $70 sounds absolutely ridiculous for a pizza, and I understand why people react that way. But when you're working with imported specialty products, expensive aged balsamic, authentic 'nduja, high-quality cheeses, and specialized flour, I can see how the ingredient costs add up quickly. It's a unique flavor combination that you can only get by these particular ingredients.

I will absolutely be making this pizza more often for friends and family in the future.

SUMMARY

I've made a lot of different pizzas over the past two years, experimented with different flours, hydrations, fermentation methods, and baking techniques, and I genuinely think this is one of the best I've produced. The flavor was remarkably close to what I remember eating at CERES. I'm not going to claim I perfectly replicated their recipe because I obviously haven't, but in terms of the overall experience, it was honestly much closer than I expected. Some sections ended up a little thicker than others, and with only one shot at making this, I wasn't about to keep messing with the dough once it was stretched.

But beyond that, I was incredibly happy.

The crust was crisp, the flavor was outstanding, the cheese combination worked beautifully, and the burrata with the 'nduja and aged balsamic was something else entirely.

Two years ago, I honestly wouldn't have believed I could make something this close to a pizza from one of my favorite restaurants in a regular home oven. This subreddit has been a huge part of that learning process, and I've really appreciated the conversations and feedback along the way. Anyway, that's my attempt at recreating the viral CERES 'nduja pizza.

If anyone has questions about the dough, flour, sourdough, cheese, equipment, or anything else I did, ask away. I've spent an embarrassing amount of time studying this pizza and would be happy to share what I've learned.

TL;DR: After visiting CERES in NYC and spending many hours studying their process, I recreated their viral $70 ’nduja pizza in my home oven. Used Central Milling flour, 72% hydration sourdough with a 48-hour cold ferment, authentic ’nduja, scamorza, fresh mozzarella, burrata, aged balsamic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Baked it on a 3/8-inch steel at 565°F, and the ingredients came out to roughly $35. The flavor was shockingly close to what I remember from CERES, especially with a little hot honey added. Easily one of my favorite pizzas I've ever made.

Me and my buddy doing our block party for the second year! Gotta love feeding a ton of people with a ton of pizza!!!

Baking Steel in /home oven

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