One of the things people love about pizza is the way they can make it based on their requirements. When it comes to making nice and delicious pizza, cheese is almost synonymous with the word pizza. People have different preferences for cheese on their pizza.
A significant number of people like to have more than one cheese and that is why a cheese blend exists. But blending cheese is not a cup of tea. You must have enough knowledge about which one works the best with another otherwise you will end up messing things up.
We are here with all the essentials needed for preparing your special homemade pizza cheese blend. Let us have a look at the fundamentals of homemade pizza cheese blends.
Preparing your homemade pizza cheese blend
The process of preparing the blend remains the same for almost all the pizzas that you are cooking. Just take the cheese blocks in perfect proportion and shred them all in one big bowl. And then you sprinkle the cheese on the pizza at the right stage in this process.
A quick tip: Some people opt for crumbled cheese over shredded cheese. In general, shredded cheese melts more easily than crumbled ones. So, make sure you shred the cheese for better results.
Key factors for choosing the right cheese
Your mastery in the art of blending cheese together will give you the amazing ability to bring unique taste and flavor to your pizza. Cheese always plays a crucial role in deciding the taste here.
This article is intended to help choose the right cheese for blending together. You need to know about certain things before you start with this process. Here is a quick look at the factors that decide the cheese you should opt for.
Color
The appearance of food is crucial; in the case of pizza, it becomes even more important. Bubbling and golden cheese are an absolute indication of a perfect pizza.
Make sure your cheese gains this color when perfectly cooked. Mozzarella is a type of cheese that gives such color and that is why it is a favorite of so many people. Your cheese blend must not mess up with the final color that you get after cooking.
Melt
Another thing that we expect from a perfect pizza is its stretchy feel after melting it to the required levels. Some cheeses become oily when you melt them and they are not suitable for pizza. Mozzarella wins again because it melts perfectly and gives the stretchy feel that we all want.
Choosing the ones with low moisture will help you in the majority of cases. Any cheese with high moisture will not give you the perfect base even though it looks nice on the top. The point is, you need more expertise in order to cook high-moisture cheese.
Taste
Last but not the least, taste matters significantly as well. And this is simply because it all comes down to taste at last. Your options here depend on the type of taste you want. Select the cheese depending on whether you want a strong or mild taste.
You have enough knowledge about the things that go into making the perfect homemade pizza cheese blend. Though there is a large number of people who go with mozzarella, parmesan, and cheddar and this blend taste great as well. You can use the same blend with varying amounts of these three. Such experiments will help you create different flavors and feel from the same ingredients.
Let’s talk about what to blend
Blending pizza cheeses starts with mozzarella as a primary component in the majority of cases and we are following the same convention. Talking more precisely, you need about 80% mozzarella and the rest of the constituents should be contained in 20%.
The most commonly used options here include cheddar and parmesan or cheddar and provolone. But you can make your own variations as well. A 50-50 blend of mozzarella and provolone tastes great as well. You can choose many other options as well based on the taste you want in your pizza.
There is another effective way that many people prefer while making their cheese blends. Cheese is broadly categorized into two categories i.e. hard and soft cheese. In order to get a perfect fluffy result, you can mix one hard and one soft cheese. You need only two types of cheese in this process. Suppose one of your constituents is Parmesan or Romano (both of these are of hard type).
Then the other should be either Fontina or Scamorza (these are soft) or something similar. One thing that you must pay attention to is to avoid using semi-hard cheese instead of hard. Blending a semi-hard cheese with a soft one, the resulting blend might not turn out that great.
How to know when you are messing up
Blending cheese is something that is not going to work with every option that is why you have to be careful. With the right information, you will be able to know when you are approaching the limits. Knowing the nature of cheese will help you in finding the perfect match.
Refrain from using too many options here. The point is to be able to enjoy the taste of different cheeses that you have blended together. Choose options where one can distinguish the tastes of different cheeses. Have one cheese with a mild taste and others with a strong taste. You will ruin things if all the constituents are of mild taste and the same will happen when all of them have a strong taste.
The constituents work best when they compensate for one another in terms of taste while retaining their specific taste as well.
Final thoughts
We have talked a lot about the fundamentals and other essentials for making your perfect blend at home. Coming up with a precise recipe would not suffice because the availability of cheese varies a lot with the location.
Our motive was to help you make the perfect blend by choosing the right ingredients that are available in your region. We hope this article helped you know the right way to make your perfect homemade pizza cheese blend.
