An electric pizza oven does most of the hard work for you, but there are a few points where a good pizza can go wrong, and almost all of them happen before the pizza reaches the stone. Get the heat, the dough and the launch right, and the oven takes care of the rest in a couple of minutes.
Start with the dough
Every great pizza starts with a perfect base. For the best flavour, ensuring a long, slow rise allows the flavour to develop within the dough, with no extra work or ingredients needed. If you have a stand mixer, the dough hook handles the kneading while you do something else. Take a look at our pizza dough recipe to work from, and a gluten free version if you need one too.
The importance of a hot oven
For pizza, it really is the hotter the better. The principle is that a very hot oven will simultaneously cook the base and toppings to crispy perfection. This is where domestic ovens can fall short. The shock of heat from a proper pizza oven helps to create those delicious air bubbles in your pizza base, as the tiny air bubbles in the dough quickly heat up and expand, before the dough around it has a chance to solidify.
Our 1200W oven has five heat levels from 110C to 400C, and pizza belongs at the 400C end, with the lower settings there for reheating, flatbreads and baking. The Pizza Pro 450 runs to 450C, which is where a rim starts to puff and char in patches rather than simply browning.
Pizza prep tips
There are a few important things to remember in your pizza making prep:
- Preheat fully: give the 1200W oven 10 minutes and the Pizza Pro 450 around 15 minutes, so the stone is hot enough to crisp the base.
- Stretch, don’t roll: work the dough from the centre outwards by hand, leaving the outer inch untouched for a light, puffed rim.
- Launch quickly: dust the peel with semolina or flour, keep toppings light, check the pizza slides, then pull the peel back in one confident movement.
Timing and turning
Around three minutes in the 1200W oven and as little as 90 seconds in the Pizza Pro 450. At those speeds a pizza can go from perfect to too dark in twenty seconds, so stay with it. Make sure to give it a spin round roughly halfway through, too. The 1200W model has a viewing window and a built-in timer, which means you can keep an eye on it without opening the lid and dropping the temperature.
Dial in the base and the top
If you are using the Pizza Pro 450, the independent top and bottom controls are the features worth learning. A base that comes out pale while the top is done wants more bottom heat. Toppings that are still flat and untouched while the base is crisping want more top heat. Adjust one at a time and you will find the setting that suits your dough within two or three pizzas.
What else to cook while it is hot
The oven is already hot, so make the most of the heat before switching it off:
- Flatbreads cook quickly on the hot stone and are ideal for using up spare dough.
- Garlic bread made with the same pizza dough is an easy extra dish.
- Our 1200W oven can also handle pastries, nachos, meat, fish and vegetables at its lower heat settings.
- Try roasted vegetables or antipasti-style sides, such as peppers, courgettes or mushrooms, while the stone is still holding heat.
- Warm up leftover slices or even a hot drink as the oven cools, making the most of the residual heat.
Looking after the stone
Let the oven cool completely before you touch the stone, then brush the surface rather than wash it. Stone is porous, so detergent soaks in and comes back into the next pizza, and water on a warm stone can crack it. Marks and darkening are normal and do not need dealing with; they are simply what a used stone looks like.
Fire it up
Ready to get started? Browse the full pizza oven range including the boards and cutters or read our pizza oven buying guide if you are still deciding between the two models.