How to turn your home oven into a pizza oven
Now that Autumn has officially arrived, there are fewer chances to spend an evening in your garden cooking pizza. As those warm summer evening fade from view and we move into the colder months of the year, only the hardiest of hardcore enthusiasts are willing to bear the cold, fire up the oven and stand outside in the dark.
It’s no surprise then, that this time of year makes the takeaway such an appealing option. But wait! There’s another way! What if you could make your own restaurant-calibre pizzas using just your home oven?
A brief science lesson
They key thing to remember is that pizza cooks from several directions: the top, the bottom and the sides, and crucial to an effective cook are two main sources of heat transfer – conduction and radiation.
Radiation is the movement of energy by electromagnetic waves. Think solar radiation, and the nasty sunburn you’ll get if you don’t apply lotion at the beach. On the other hand, conduction is the direct transfer of energy from one object to another, like burning your feet on the sand at the same beach. In short, most energy is transferred at the beach!
Ahem. Moving swiftly back to pizza. The top and sides of your pie cook via radiation, while the bottom of the base cooks by conduction. The former comes from your oven’s heating element, and the latter comes from the surfaces that you bake the pizza on.
The trick is to get these two sources of heat working together in perfect harmony. Pizza is an odd food, because it’s simultaneously being cooked AND baked. The base (a flatbread) must be baked at the same rate as the toppings are cooked, and one thing is vital to striking that balance: conduction.
The key to conduction
To really maximise conduction, you need thermal mass. This refers to the heat-storing and delivery capacity of a material. The larger the thermal mass, the longer it can supply heat to the object it’s in contact with. It takes a lot of heat to get the bottom of your pizza base to bake at the same rate as the top and sides, so the more thermal mass a material has, the more likely it will be able to keep pace.
The thermal mass of an object is directly related to the weight and density of the material that it’s made of, and the denser and heavier it is, the better. And now you know why pizza stones and pizza steels weigh so damn much!
It’s all about the (pizza) base
Typically, pizzas are baked in high temperature ovens (like the one in your back garden) that can reach over 500°C; something that domestic ovens simply can’t do. So, while it might seem impossible, we’re here to tell you that you can create good, nay, even great pizza right there in your kitchen using our award-winning dough balls and pizza bases.
While a standard home oven can never get as hot or store as much heat as a specialist outdoor oven, there are strategies you can employ to maximise the heat you pull out of it. And one of the best is to use a pizza stone. With a large thermal mass, stones are great for getting heat to the underside of your pizza, meaning as the base cooks, it keeps pace with the top and sides.
Or better yet, use a baking steel. These slabs of raw steel have a similar thermal mass to pizza stones, but have another trick up their sleeves: high thermal conductivity. Metal is far more conductive than ceramic, which means that steels not only hold heat well, but also transfer it to the pizza more rapidly. And faster heat transfer means faster cooking.
While steels are great, and there are some inexpensive options on the market, there is a budget-friendly alternative that’s often overlooked: firebricks. They’re heavy, heat-resistant bricks made for fireplaces and ovens that cost a couple of quid each. Being the thickest of all the surfaces, they have the best thermal mass, but their size means they can’t be left in the oven constantly (like steels can) and take time to arrange on your oven rack ahead of each bake.
The final – and arguably best – way to make incredible pizza in your home oven is by combining two of the surfaces mentioned. That could be firebricks with a steel or stone, or a steel on top of a stone. It’s the way to achieve supreme thermal mass.
But whatever surface or combination of surfaces you use, the key is to preheat, preheat and preheat some more! For best results, we recommend heating stones, steels and firebricks for at least an hour at the oven’s maximum temperature before loading your pizza.
Location, location, location.
Another important detail to consider is where in the oven to place your baking surface. All domestic ovens are slightly different, but a good rule of thumb is to position your rack and surfaces anywhere between 6” – 8” from the top. Because hot air rises, putting the surface close to but not quite at the top of the oven maximises the amount of heat reaching the top and sides of the pizza, while leaving ample wiggle room to get the pie in and out of the oven without too much hassle!
Let us do the work for you!
Our hand-stretched pizza bases are part-baked on hot stones which is great for two reasons: firstly, being part-baked they require a shorter cook time which allows the base to keep pace with the toppings. Secondly, it creates an unforgettable aroma and deep, complex flavour. Without question, our hand-stretched bases are the easiest way to knock up delicious, perfectly baked pizza in just a few minutes.
While you can lay your topped pizza directly onto an oven tray or even the rack, we would always recommend using one or a combination of the surfaces listed above to achieve the best results. Firstly, pop your oven on to warm up; for at least an hour if you’re using a stone, steels or firebricks. While that’s on the go, pull a base out of the freezer and let it defrost. This should only take 10 – 15 minutes. When that’s ready, top with your sauce, cheese and toppings and load into the oven to bake. No mess, no stress and the best homemade pizza in next to no time!
Shop award-winning pizza dough balls and hand-stretched pizza bases
