Pizza Lover? Pick Mozzarella: Science Shows This Cheese Is The Best Topping

Most of us love pizza, but did you know that science has now confirmed that mozzarella is the perfect cheese for this Italian dish?

Researchers found that when looking at mozzarella, cheddar, Edam and Gruyere cheeses, mozzarella provided the perfect stretchiness for pizza crusts above all other varieties that allowed it to properly bubble and brown during the baking process.

"Pizza branding and blistering seems like a totally trivial question, right? You stuff your pizza in the oven and it clearly is going to brown and blister," said researcher Bryony James, an associate professor at the University of Auckland, via the New Zealand Herald. "But it actually is dictated by a combination of composition and mechanical properties of the cheese itself."

This cheese's stretchy consistency helps make big bubbles when water is evaporating from the pizza and browns them easily in the oven through lower oil and moisture levels.

"Different cheeses can be employed on 'gourmet' style pizzas in combination with mozzarella," the research team noted, via a study abstract. "Based on the findings, cheeses with some attributes can be used to cook pizzas to meet the specific preferences of consumers."

"These cheeses can be combined with the easily blistering mozzarella to create a gourmet pizza with a less burnt appearance," the scientists added, via the Canada Journal. 

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the article "Qualification of Pizza Baking Properties of Difference Cheese and Their Correlation with Cheese Functionality" via the journal Food Science.