Pizza Project - Day 4

Day four brings the letter F to the oven, and a side note on the varying calorie count in the pizzas.

Today's pizza is a Freschetta.  Another hesitation at adding this one to the experiment, mainly for superficial reasons- the box.

Nothing really wrong with it.  It just looks mass market, mass produced.  I know, frozen pizza could be the poster child for mass market, mass produced.  I also was a bit turned off by the "Naturally Rising Crust", I was looking to replace a hand-tossed style crust.  This one is also a straight pepperoni pie unlike the meat combos considered so far.  Not much of a story on that point, there simply wasn't a meat combo option available from Freschetta at the store.

Distinctly different from the DiGiorno pizza, this cover isn't loaded with trademarks.  The "Signature Pepperoni Pizza" name adds a bit, saying this isn't just any pepperoni pizza.  For those looking for a health angle to nudge this box into the shopping basket there is the "!00% real cheese" and "Preservative Free Crust"-- not exactly differentiators as almost every pizza in the store says these things too.

The pre-baked goods show the cover photo doesn't lie (how could it, see the little peek-inside window cut through the cardboard?)

19 pepperoni slices in neat little rows.  Makes it easy to imagine this pie sliding down an assembly line, the lower left corner leading the way as 5 rows of pizza slices are mechanically dispensed onto the sauce and cheese.  Looks like the overall topping application alignment was a little off- everything seems shifted towards to the top right corner.

A bit about the stats before we get to the baked-up goods.

Price: $5.99 (the range was $5 to $9.99)
Calories: 340 for 1/6 of a pizza (510 for two sizes of a pizza cut 8 ways).
Cooking Temp: 400 F. That converts to about 204.4 C.
Cooking Time: The instructions call for 20 to 24 minutes.  I went with 22, midway in the range with a nudge up for the rising crust).

On to the finished product.

I mentioned before how the pizza's vary their serving size and end up around 340 calories on each box- seems like it might be a strategy to keep an even playing field.  If there was a wide variance customers who are counting calories may be tempted  to make a "low cal" choice. 

But I wonder if that thinking is realistic. When the cooking is done, is the calorie counting consumer really going to cut this pizza six ways and take one slice, versus cutting another pizza 4 ways and taking a quarter of the pizza to arrive at the calorie count on the box?  At this house all pizzas get cut into 8 slices and a "serving" is two or three slices. 

So how was it?  Poofy, as advertised. It went good with the sauces mentioned in a previous post.  Overall the Freschetta is very similar to the DiGiorno.  With the D box bringing more toppings and seasonings I would've expected the prices to be reversed (the D box was $5, this a penny shy of $6). 

A note on leftovers, that risen crust made it impossible to fit four remainder slices into the container I had been putting the left over pizza into, but that's OK- at 510 calories for two slices that's enough for lunch.

Tomorrow the pizza slims down for the letter G.