California Pizza Kitchen is a chain that most people know for bringing “California style” pizzas with non-traditional toppings to the mainstream. To be completely honest, I’m more of a traditionalist so I don’t get as excited over their toppings combos, but I do like their pizzas overall, especially their cauliflower crust.
As per usual, California Pizza Kitchen’s frozen pizzas were on sale at Target, so I picked up the CPK Four Cheese Thin Crust variety. I didn’t look at the box too closely when I grabbed it and was expecting the usual four cheese suspects like mozzarella, asiago, parmesan, romano, or maybe provolone. What I wasn’t expecting, but is a part of California Pizza Kitchen’s four cheese combo, was the hickory smoked gouda and fontina.
The instructions say to bake the pizza at 400F for 15 minutes directly on the rack. I forgot to time it and ended up baking mine a little more well done than I’d like. Despite the error, it’s still pretty good looking for a frozen pizza, with the cheese browning giving it almost the same look as a bar pizza.
As far as the taste, I was actually pretty let down based on how good the pizza looked. The thin crust is just too thin and too cracker-like, with no discernible taste. Most likely because they didn’t want to overwhelm the crust, there is a disappointing amount of sauce and cheese. As a frozen pizza, it’s just not satisfying. I’m not a thin crust fan to begin with, but this wasn’t the pizza to convert me into a believer.
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