Pizza Heat

The reason you can't make restaurant-quality pizza at home is because good pizza needs at least 750 degrees. You saw what a proper oven can do, in the article a few days ago about the wood-fired clay oven my friend Tom baked up. You can do it at home by rigging your oven so you can open it during the self-clean cycle but now, there's a better way.

A new way to get proper-pizza heat at home comes from Serious Eats (which I picked up via Lifehacker). I haven't tried it but it's a sound idea. Simply: Turn on the broiler. Meanwhile, heat a cast iron pan on high heat for 20 minutes. Put the pan in the oven, upside down, under the broiler. Bake your pie on that searing platform for about 90 seconds.

Hey, someone please try this and add your finding to the Comments! I am traveling and won't be able to do this for weeks. I'm going to New York, where real pizza lives.

(By the way -- a great pan for this would be the 15-inch Lodge cast iron, about $40 from Amazon. I have this pan and it's very handy, and a very inexpensive way to get the monster pan you need occasionally.)

Comments

[Carolyn Jung]

Interesting concept! So is this better than heating a pizza stone in the oven for 45 minutes at 500 degrees?

[Moe Rubenzahl]

Yes, definitely. For the same reason you can't bake a cake for twice as long at a lower temperature.

A pizza stone helps since you have 500 degrees in contact, transferring heat to the underside. But this would be much better, probably 700 degrees. It's all about putting as much heat into the pie as fast as possible.

[Harru]

Nice I logged in thinking this would be real old but now I know you update quite a bit......do you now hoo I am?.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................well do you?...........................................................................................................................2 bad if you don't cause I'm not gonna tell you but I wil give hint I'm not harry *sarcasm*