Little Caesar's

One of Little Caesars most successful new products is these mini deep-dish pizzas, baked until browned and bubbly, brushed with buttery garlic spread, and sprinkled with herbs and cheese. They come with pepperoni or just cheese, and they’re so good that the moment I tried one, I knew that a home hack was in my immediate future. 

I wanted my Little Caesars Crazy Puffs copycat recipe to be better than any of the mom blog versions that rely on pre-made dough, so I made the dough from scratch using bread flour and cold-proofed it for 48 hours. This gave me a nicely fermented chewy dough that nicely matched the dough from Little Caesars in texture and flavor.

After recently discovering that Little Caesars Crazy Sauce is the same recipe as their marinara pizza sauce, I redesigned my Little Caesars Crazy Sauce recipe from my 1995 cookbook, More Top Secret Recipes. And this time, I made the sauce without cooking it after a worker revealed that important secret. The sauce will eventually cook when it goes through the oven on the pizza. Meanwhile, in the back, some of that sauce is packaged into to-go cups and chilled until it's served to customers as Crazy Sauce for dipping. 

You can make 21 Crazy Puffs clones in 2 batches using a 12-cup muffin pan coated with butter-flavored oil spray. I've made sure to include instructions for both versions: pepperoni and cheese & herb. Because choices are nice.

Find more of my Little Caesar's copycat recipes here.

From 1990 to 1993, Little Caesars sales growth ranked in the top five in the restaurant industry, according to Nation's Restaurant News Magazine. As of 1993, the company had more than 4,800 outlets raking in $2.3 billion. Business was so good that founder Michael Ilitch was able to purchase the Detroit Red Wings hockey team in 1982, and then the Detroit Tigers in 1992. Ilitch also owns several arenas and theaters, including the Second City comedy theater in Detroit.

The Crazy Sauce is usually served with Crazy Bread, for dipping. Make my Little Caesar's Crazy Sauce copycat recipe below and pair it with my Little Caesar's Crazy Bread recipe here.

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

In 1959, Michael Ilitch and his wife, Marian, opened the first Little Caesars restaurant in Garden City, Michigan, fifteen miles west of Detroit. Encouraged by their success, the couple opened a second restaurant two years later, and soon Little Caesar's Pizza was a household name in the Detroit area. Biographical material provided by the company claims that Ilitch "thinks pizza," and that when he designed the Little Caesars conveyor oven, the company was able to serve hot pizza faster than anyone else in the industry.

One of the most popular products available from Little Caesars is the Crazy Bread, first served in 1982. It's pizza dough cut into eight pieces, then coated with garlic salt, butter, and Parmesan cheese. My Little Caesars Crazy Bread recipe is made easily with a tube of Pillsbury pizza dough, which you slice into strips and bake.

Now, you'll want to make my Little Caesars Crazy Sauce for dipping here.

Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.