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California Pizza Kitchen, Your Pie, &pizza sprouting spring innovations

March 21, 2019

The pizza world is primed and ready for spring with all kinds of menu items sprouting up like daffodils do this time of year. Here's a roundup of some of the innovative things brands and suppliers are doing around menu items this spring. 

 Pizza Kitchen — or CPK as it likes to call itself—  is pushing out a little of the hot and some of the cool this season with LTOs, Milano and Sticky Asian Cauliflower, both blazing with heat-containing ingredients like spicy marinara and fennel sausage on the pie and sweet and spicy coatings on the crispy florets. 

Then to cool it down a notch, CPK has mixed up three beverage LTOs in its Baja and Tropical sangrias, along with its non-alcoholic sparkling blood orange offering. The brand said it has also expanded its catering menu this spring. 

Meanwhile, at Georgia-based brand, Your Pie — which is also the subject of this week's podcast that publishes here Friday — the innovation is all in the bacon, through the brand's LTO now through June 5, the Double Bacon BLT Pie. 

"This pie took the top prize at our 2018 Craft Pie Cook-off at our annual Franchise Fest event, earning a coveted spot on our Craft Series menu," Founder Drew French said in a new release. "The team did a great job integrating what everyone loves about a classic BLT into a delicious, handcrafted pizza."

The Craft Series has been the brand's seasonal feature since it began in 2008, and now brings five new creations into the fold for a try each year. 

Finally, &pizza has received positive reviews from customers for introducing Smart Flour's sorghum-based, gluten-free pizza crust, said &pizza Head of Culinary Bridget Siegel.

As a cereal grain, sorghum certain qualifies as "ancient," as the Whole Grains Council said the first evidence of its use comes from Egypt 8,000 years ago. Smart Flour has made it part of its Tavern Pizza Crusts line and said the light-colored sorghum helps make a dough that cooks up "like a traditional, white-flour crust," but includes the fiber and antioxidants of ancient grains. 

"We wanted to develop a crust that resembled our traditional dough — a nice crunch and earthy, wheat-like flavor," Siegel said in an interview with this site. "Sorghum accomplished this, more than typical gluten-free blends or a rice flour would.  

"I think it was the key in achieving the texture we found on this crust. It also has the added benefit of having fewer calories than rice flour, and so in one crust option, we are able to offer customers a gluten-free, vegan and lower-calorie option."

Photos: Provided