Review: Pizza Hut's New Hand-Tossed Crust

Pizza Hut has introduced a new crust for its hand-tossed pizzas that focuses on a lighter (as in less-dense), airier dough, combined with a finishing brush of garlic-butter sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella.

I just finished one off, ordered online for the introductory price of $10. Pepperoni, black olives, extra cheese.

Here's what the new crust looks like in a screen grab from PizzaHut.com:

Disclosure: Pizza Hut has never been my No. 1 (or even No. 2) pizza chain for delivery. And the main reason for that was the old crust. It was bland, it was boring, it was too doughy around the rim, too chewy around the rim - it had too much chew and too little bite.

Pizza Hut's new hand-tossed crust definitely changes that. My pizza arrived with a distinct garlicky smell that was prominent before I opened the box.

The new crust was eye-pleasing, with more textures obvious, and also with the little gratings of Mozzarella cheese obvious.

The garlic-butter sauce that is brushed on helps the edges crisp up, and the more "airy" dough retains the right amount of softness on the inside. Some crunch and some chew, rather than all chew and no crunch as with the old crust.

The bottom of the new hand-tossed pizza is very greasy, as one would probably expect if its been brushed with garlic-butter sauce.

And you better like garlic, because it's prominent, and there's a pronounced garlic aftertaste.

The conclusion? Pizza Hut's new hand-tossed crust is a big improvement, in my opinion, over its old crust. Keep in mind what I said earlier, though: I didn't like the old crust. If you did, then your opinion of the new crust may well be different.

However, it seems a bit imitative - a good imitation - of the garlic-butter-brushed crust introduced by Domino's a couple years ago. And I still think the Domino's crust beats the new Pizza Hut crust, although it's close.

We give Pizza Hut's new crust, with its garlic-butter-Mozzarella trio and its crispier-but-with-good-chew, more interesting, texture 4 out of 5 stars. It's a clear step up from the chain's previous crust.

Have you tried it? Let us know what you think.