Pizza Cheese Showdown

For quite some time, I've made pizza with at least two kinds of cheeses: mozzarella and Parmesan.  I've done this for years ... a couple decades, actually.  So, I thought it was about time to examine my old habit.  Time to find out if it is a good habit or just something I did.

This is one of probably many cheese tests.  After all, there are a lot of different kinds of cheeses.  Some I can immediately rule out.  American cheese comes to mind.  I will not put that on a pizza.  There are many others worth trying ... some I can even get here.  Mozzarella, Parmesan, Romano, Cheddar ... maybe even Jack or Colby.

So many combinations ... so many pizzas to make.

In order to test correctly, I made sure to weigh the cheese.  30g of Parmesan for one pizza.  125g of mozzarella for each pizza.

My normal sauce on the pizza that will have both cheeses.  The two-cheese pizza I made round.  When I did the Oatmeal Showdown, I used food coloring to mark each type.  People found that to be strange, so I decided to use shapes this time.

Putting my sauce on the pizza that will just have mozzarella.  This one is square.

Here's a close up of the two-cheese pizza.

Here's a close-up of the mozzarella-only pizza.

The two pizzas after coming out of the oven.  My oven is working well again.  510F (265C) for 12 minutes to get these results.

Test Results

The Primary Test Team devoured the two pizzas.  As usual, they ate the pizza with all the subtlety of a stampeding herd of mastodons.

With only a couple of exceptions, the pizza with both cheese was preferred.

Conclusions

The result wasn't really a surprise.  While the intial taste of the two pizzas is similar, the Parmesan adds a nice sharpness to the aftertaste.  Something that the mozzarella-only pizza completely lacks.