Jake Hillinger and his team at the Firefly Pizza Company are the experts in delicious wood-fired pizza creations. We learned more about their passion for products including naturally leavened dough with fermented gluten and their premium selection of cheeses and sausage. We also dove deeper into their reference of baking bread as a ‘happy accident’.

What you mean by your comment on "Baking bread as a "happy accident"? 

Baking bread as a "happy accident" comes from the fact that Jake had never baked before. In his time cooking, he had always avoided recipes and baking!

So, it just turned out when we developed our pizza dough recipe, the dough we were making makes incredible sourdough bread.

What are the benefits of fermenting gluten?

When the amino acids contained in wheat go through the fermentation process, the issues people typically have with digestion are minimized. This is not to say that someone with true Celiac disease would be able to eat our pizza.  We like to consider ourselves "gluten friendly" but not gluten free. We frequently hear from our customers "I normally can not eat bread or pizza, but I love your pizza!" 

Did you know that bread in the United States can have up to 32 ingredients in it?  Ours only has three. 

Among the 32 ingredients are stabilizers, artificial gluten substitutes, preservatives, and plenty of sugar.  The gluten achieved by the fermentation process is the product of time and the interaction of water and several ancient grain flours.

What selection of cheeses and sausage do you use?

We only use the best version of cheese and meats, including whole milk mozzarella from Wisconsin or Italian sausage from Chicago!