Red Baron was always one of my Dad's favorite frozen pizza varieties back in the 70s. Through the 90s it became one of my favorites as well, before the frozen pizza game evolved so much.
Affordable and tasty with no preservatives, it was about the best frozen pizza available on the market at the time.
I spotted these French bread pizzas in the freezer section this week and had to give them a whirl for old times sake. While unpackaging the pizzas, I noticed something interesting.
It appears that Red Baron had some troubles in regards to their pepperoni slicing/quartering machine. More about this when I cover the toppings in my review below.
As instructed on the box, I cooked the French bread pizza for 20 minutes at 375°. All in all, the French bread pizzas looked great and smelled pretty good to boot.
Quality Control asleep at the wheel?
Two slices of French bread pizza from the same package. One slice with quartered pepperoni slices and the other with slices that were allllllmost quartered.
For me, the crust was a bit too dense. I'm sure this has to do with a par bake or flash freezing at the factory, so the sauce doesn't seep into the bread. However, the exterior layer of crust baked beautifully and had a great color to it.
The sauce
No complaints here. It seemed like the standard sauce used on other Red Baron frozen pizzas. It has a good flavor profile for frozen pizza sauce.
No complaints here. It seemed like the standard sauce used on other Red Baron frozen pizzas. It has a good flavor profile for frozen pizza sauce.
The cheese
From the looks of the semi melted cheese on the uncooked slices, it appears to have been either partially cooked, or applied to the crust right after a par bake. Par baking can really help a Frozen pie.
It keeps the crust from getting mushy, and makes for a really crispy crust as well. The cheese melted uniformly, and tasted pretty good, although the cheese didn't spread much during the melt.
The pepperoni
When it comes to pepperoni, I like a full slices and not chunks, strands, or pieces. The obvious intent from the partially cut pepperoni you see above, was to quarter the slices for this pizza. The box even depicts the pepperoni this way.
Perhaps the pizza quartering machines are becoming self-aware? Maybe they're rising up, forcing the masses to eat quartered and partially quartered pepperoni slices at their whim!
As far as the taste, it was pretty good and up to par with the pepperoni on Red Baron's other frozen pies. At first I thought I was benefiting from this factory slicing error.
Whether full or quartered, it's the exact same amount of pepperoni, which is five slices per slice of pizza. I know there would be better pepperoni distribution if they were quartered, but I still like my full slices.
Retro Pizza rating..
(as far as frozen French Bread Pizza goes)
4 out of 5 Slices
At about $4 for a box, this is a great value and surprisingly good quality.
Will it taste as good as a home baked French bread pizza? Apart from the bread being a bit more dense, I'm thinking this tastes better than a lot of homemade French bread pizzas I've eaten, and on occasion made for myself in years past.
I would definitely buy these again to keep in the freezer for a snack attack of the pizza kind.
I'm thinking this variety of Frozen French bread pizza is currently the best on the market, but if you know of any others I should try, by all means drop a comment and let me know!