I am planning to make pizza for my work potluck this year. I will be the second time.
I cook it fresh in my over 10 minutes away from work, and then put it in pizza boxes to transport.
My initial concern last year, was that the pizza stays warm. The first pizza has to wait about 18 minutes for the other pizza to cook, then the 10 minute drive to work.
to solve this problem, I immediately took the pizza out of the oven and placed it directly into a aluminum foil lined box. The catastrophic and unxpected side effect, was that the heat and humidity ruined the crispyness of the bottom of the crust, and the pizza was a soft and saggy and sad mess.
This year I need to improve. I need to keep the pizza warm and crispy!
My first improvement is to put the pizza in the box, on top of an elevated cooky cooling grate. This will allow the bottom to breath.
Now I am looking for ideas to deal with the humidity in the box.
Could I put something in there to absorb the humidity? Would a bunch of sheets of paper towel be good. Maybe I could go further and put a tonne of flour in the bottom? Maybe silica packets?
I am just looking for ideas to keep the pizza warm and crispy over about a 26 minute period.
Best Answer
Pizza parlors have adapted to using thermal bags to slide the pizza boxes into and keep the pizza relatively warm. One or two of these might be worth the investment. 18" square x 5" would be for larger pies, but you can get smaller bags, the 5" depth would hold two standard pizza boxes stacked on top of each other. There are a lot of similar products on the market which may work, but I linked a restaurant quality bag. Your local restaurant supply store may have them in stock (and most sell to the public). The bags eliminate the worry about humidity, although many restaurants use a thick sheet of something similar to wax paper to prevent grease from bleeding through to the box.