How do we cook your homemade pizza and make it better than going out!?
The key to cooking great pizza at home is a good set of recipes, a bit of know how and generally speaking, the hotter the oven the better the pizza. You want that char and that explosive heat which cooks your pizza as quick as possible!
There are two main options when it comes to cooking your homemade pizza…
Firstly, its your conventional oven at home…
Temperatures in a wood fired pizza oven can reach the 800-1000f mark where as your home oven will reach 500f absolute max. There is an obvious difference in temperature there but there are a couple of things you can do to help give you great pizza!…
- Always preheat your oven to max! One thing you must not do is put your fresh, homemade pizza into a cold oven and then switch it on…its pointless and will cook a terrible pizza! People online recommend preheating for 30 minutes.
- Use a pizza stone or pizza steel! The pizza stone/steel replicates, to a certain extent, what is happening in a pizza oven. It will conduct the heat from the oven and cook the pizza from the bottom, similar to that of a pizza oven where the floor can reach 650f+ whilst the heat inside the oven cooks the pizza from the top. Place your pizza stone/steel in a cold oven and once you preheat your oven you inturn will preheat your pizza stone/steel. Once preheated you can slide your pizza onto it with the aid of a bit of extra flour or semolina, but dont touch the stone/steel, it will be HOT! If you dont have a pizza stone you can try and do the same thing with a flat baking tray. Iv tried this and it was ok. Very convenient in that you dont need to buy the extra equipment, you just use a tray you already have, but average results compared to the stone or steel.
- Cook it in the pan/grill! My preferred version these days, if I’m cooking indoors and I want things done fast, is to start the pizza in a dry, hot frying pan and then after a couple of minutes put it under a really hot grill. I find this works really well! It might not be on quite the same par as the pizza stone/steel but it very quick, easy, convenient and much of the same theory behind it as the pizza oven. One thing I would suggest about this method is to not cook your pizza for too long on the hob in the frying pan as you can develop a very thick crust. I find a couple of minutes just to brown it off is enough as it continues to cook under the grill.
The second option for cooking your homemade pizza is the holy grail of cooking – the wood fired pizza oven!…
Whether you buy a pizza oven kit, a portable pizza oven or make your own DIY pizza oven, entering the world of the wood fired oven gives you the potential to make amazing pizza!
There really is nothing quite like the wood fired pizza oven! Cooking your homemade pizza in about 2 minutes flat, seeing the flames lick over the top and serving it up to your family! Still a goal Im working on and Im not far off!
Why is a wood fired pizza oven so good at cooking pizza?
Pizza oven temperatures can reach 500 degrees c which is over 900 f. This will inturn give you the chance to give your pizza a crispy base, a nice bit char on the crust, and fast high heat means nice big bubbles in the dough! The heat will create the crispy outer crust whilst keeping the centre of the dough fluffy, the sauce and toppings will cook nicely and the cheese will melt evenly. Just trust me on this…
How do you cook pizza in a pizza oven?
- Prepare your oven…
First you need to get your fire going and heat up the oven. You want to make a small fire with some kindling, a couple of logs and a natural fire lighter under it and let it burn. Once you start to see the inside of the dome go black, pop a couple of more logs on and really get the heat going. The logs will start to go white and this is what you want – a good base of embers on which you can put a couple of fresh logs to get some flame if you so want it when you cook…which I do!
By this time you will have most of the floor of the pizza oven covered in hot embers and the temperature should hopefully be around the 350-400C mark. You want to move all of these embers to the side or back so you have room to cook your pizza…
I like to keep the fire stocked with a log or 2 every 5 – 7 minutes. You dont want too much smoke you want flame to lick the top of your pizza.
- Build your pizza…
Wether you want to smash a pizza out a quick pizza in 20 minutes or spend 3 days proving the perfect pizza dough, all you need to know is here…
- Cook your pizza…
Congratulation! If you have made it here, this is the fun bit! To construct my pizza I make it all on a lightly floured pizza peel. Place the rolled out dough over the peel, top it with your sauce and toppings and slide it with a juddering motion into the centre of the oven.
This is super fast food because this pizza is going to be done in a couple of minutes! The trick to cooking the pizza once it’s in your pizza oven is to rotate it roughly every 30 seconds. You do this to even out the cooking process. Your fire will most likly be on one side of the oven and that side of the pizza is obviouly going to cook quicker and has a high likelyhood of burning. Rotate the pizza by 1/3 every 30 seconds and you should be fine! After one pizza cooking sesion you will know how your oven cooks anyway!
Keep rotating the pizza in the oven until u get something that looks like this…
What temperature are you looking for in your homemade pizza oven?
Generally speaking, the hotter the oven the better the better the pizza. In my limited experience I find around 400C / 750F is the sweet spot or anywhere around is my sweet spot. Its not too hot but hot enough to make an amazing pizza!
