The Grinch Philly Tomato Pie recipe is a fun and festive take on the popular Philadelphia bakery style pizza. Philly tomato pie is traditionally a “sheet” pizza about 1/2″ thick and smothered with a thick, sweet, pasty tomato sauce. The pizza is traditional sprinkled with parmesan cheese. Bakeries like Conshohocken Bakery and Corropolese Bakery have been using stencils to create parmesan cheese patterns to make images of Philly sports team logos and just about anything you can imagine!

Seeing these tomato pies on social media and enjoying The Grinch on TV as the holidays approach inspired me to create this pizza. At first, I thought it would be a simple task to simply add green food coloring to my regular dough and bake it. After the first trial pizza turned out to look like an ugly, blotchy green and brown pile of grossness with tomatoes on it, I had to make some adjustments.

A huge thank you to PMQ Pizza Magazine for featuring the Grinch Philly Tomato Pie in this Article!

Grinch Tomato Pie Experiment

The first thing I noticed was that the primary color green liquid food color I was using didn’t get that Grinch-y color I was seeking. It also seemed to loose its luster while it baked in the oven. A friend recommended neon gel food coloring, which worked perfectly!

Even with the new food color, the pizza kept turning brown while baking. With most pizzas, browning is highly desirable, but not when it’s robbing the Grinch Philly Tomato Pie of its proper color! I hypothesized that either the direct heat was too much, or that the air hitting the dough was turning it brown. In my next experiment, I moved from a pizza baked on the stone to one baked in a pan. The results were vastly improved, but still browning too much.

Finally, I decided to put a lid on my Philly Tomato Pie while it baked BOOM I had exact color and texture I sought! Now that you know the process I went through, let’s get to the recipe!

Grinch Philly Tomato Pie Recipe

Grinch Dough Recipe

Dough Ingredients

Product Links take you to Amazon listing of exact ingredients I used in this recipe. Measurements are presented in grams.

This recipe will make more than enough dough for an average 11″x17″ cookie sheet. I also baked test Grinch Pies in a 10″x14″ Detroit Lloydpan and a 14″ Round Chicago Metallic Deep Dish Pan. Use these weights for each of the pans:

  • 11×17 Cookie Sheet – 24 oz Dough Ball
  • 10×14 Detroit Pan – 13 oz Dough Ball
  • 14″ Round Pan – 16 oz dough ball

Dough Instructions

Whisk water, yeast, and sugar in mixing bowl until dissolved and yeast froths. Add the flour and mix until it creates a wet, shaggy dough (approximately 2 minutes in a stand mixer). Pour in the salt and olive oil and mix until dough starts to become smooth (about 3 minutes). Add the food coloring and mix until color is evenly distributed and uniform throughout the dough.

When dough is finished mixing, allow to rest at room temperature in a covered bowl for 20 minutes. Remove dough from bowl and knead by hand. Place back in covered bowl for 5 minutes. Repeat the hand kneading 2 more times at 5 minute intervals. When you are finished kneading for the final time, cover dough tightly with a lid or plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 1 hour or until the dough increases about 50% in size. Then place covered dough in the refrigerator for 4-12 hours.

When you’re ready to put your dough into the pan, be sure to pull it out of the fridge at least 30 minutes prior to working with it. Wipe Crisco, lard, or butter across the entire base of the pan. Gently lift dough into pan and press gently with your fingertips from the center out to the corners of the pan. Don’t force the dough. If it won’t stretch, cover the pan and come back in 10 minutes to press it the rest of the way. Once you’re done pressing the dough out to the edges, ensure the dough is even throughout and cover the pan with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1-3 hours.

Tomato Pie Sauce Recipe

Grinch Philly Tomato Pie Sauce
Apply thick pasty sauce liberally until is fully covers the entire crust except for a 1/2″ border around the outside edge.

Sauce Ingredients

Sauce Instructions

Combine all ingredients into a bowl. Mix with immersion blender, food mil or food processor until sauce is smooth and pasty.

Baking Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 450f degrees
  • Remove wrap from dough in pan and cover pan with a lid or another pan to shield the dough from direct heat.
  • Bake covered for 8 minutes or until crust starts to brown on the bottom and you can press a finger gently into the crust and it rebounds slowly.
  • Remove from the oven and apply sauce liberally, leaving a 1/2″ perimeter of bare green crust. Replace the lid and place pizza back into the oven for 2 minutes. Remove lid and finish baking for an additional 2 minutes.

Adding the Grinch to the Tomato Pie

I am fortunate enough to have an awesome cousin who was able to make me a Grinch stencil on a Cricut machine made from thin, food grade plastic. You can also make your own using an exacto knife and some tracing paper. I have also seen stencils available for sale on sites like etsy.

Once you have your stencil, the rest is easy. Simply place your stencil onto the tomato sauce. It’s important to press it gently into the sauce so that it is evenly applied across the surface of the pizza. Then you’ll simply take your parmesan cheese, sprinkle it all over the stencil, specifically the spots where the red sauce is showing. After you’re done applying, it’s important to brush the excess cheese off of the stencil before lifting. Then lift the stencil off and you have yourself a Grinch Philly Tomato Pie!

Additional Thoughts

This dough recipe can be used for a traditional Philly Tomato pie, just leave out the food coloring and don’t worry about baking with a lid on the crust and you’ll be fine. This dough is also awesome for Old Forge Style Pizza!

If you have questions about this recipe, please do reach out to me in the comments or by using the social links below. This recipe does contain amazon affiliate links, so if you do click one and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission to help me create new content like this. It costs you nothing, but goes a long way to keeping NEPA Pizza Review operating!

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