This trick works so well I thought I’d repeat/revise an earlier blog post, this time with pictures.
Our cob oven makes great pizzas. Why? High temperatures. You just can’t make good pizza in a home oven. Or so I used to think.
One evening I invited some friends over for an outdoor pizza party but rain put a wrinkle in those plans. I remembered that Josey Baker had some instructions in his book Josey Baker Bread on how to make pizza in a home oven, so I decided to give it a try. Baker credits this home oven technique to a San Francisco street pizza maverick who goes by the name PizzaHacker. I’m happy to report that it works so well that I wonder why I should bother to spend three hours tending a fire to prep the outdoor oven. Is pizza out of a wood fired oven better? Perhaps, but not by much.
The PizzaHacker’s method is simple. Here’s what you do:
1. Preheat an oven oven safe skillet (I like cast iron) over high heat on a burner. Put a little oil in the pan.
2. Plop your shaped dough into the skillet. Top your pizza while it cooks in the skillet for three minutes.
3. After three minutes stick it under the broiler for another three more minutes or until done. That’s it. This method works much better than trying to bake pizza on a pizza stone.
4. Take the pizza out and let it cool down for a minute. Then slice and enjoy.
I wish I had known about this technique before I bought an expensive pizza stone as this method works much, much better.
You can’t make good pizza in a home oven? I thought all those 100’s of pizzas I made in my home oven were pretty damn good. They cook in 5 minutes, so my oven gets hot enough–or maybe it’s the altitude here(3500ft). In the summer I put the stone in my bbq, which gets even hotter. They will cook at least 1.5 minute faster. In the bbq it will burn on the bottom and not be cooked on the top unless you cook it for 1 min. turn it over, put the toppings on and then cook normally.
I tried putting the burner on high, and following your instructions. The bottom of the pizza burned almost immediately. I now put the burner on medium, and it works fine. Great pizzas.
This is awesome!
Awesome, Erik!
This looks great! Is this a sour dough crust? Will this dough recipie be in your new bread baking e-book? Wink 😉
Yes indeed this is a sourdough crust. And, yes, I’m working on that e-book!
Brilliant! I’m definitely going to try this.
The pizza stone I use costs all of $19. I’ve made pizzas on it that I have considered to be superior to Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Shakey’s and Papa John’s. Then again. It’s not that hard to do that.
What amount of time do you preheat the broiler, i.e. how much time does it take to bring it up to the temperature you use it at?
Is that a 10 inch cast iron skillet?
I preheat around 10 mintues and I’m away from the kitchen right now but I think it’s around 10 inches.