Electric Oven
Place a baking tray in the middle shelf of your oven.
Ensure the tray is upside down (for sliding pizza in and out of the oven).
Preheat oven to 230 degrees (or as hot as your oven can reach ) for 40 minutes.
This will ensure that the baking tray becomes a “crisper plate” for the pizza.
Ensure that your pizza is defrosted and room temperature.
Dress your pizza as required.
Use a pizza peel or the cardboard disk that came with your purchase to slide the pizza onto the baking tray.
Cook for 4 to 6 mins depending on the toppings.
Remove the pizza and baking tray from the oven ( the pizza may have stuck to the baking tray)
Gently work a fish-slice or similar utensil around the edges to loosen the pizza before cutting or moving to avoid tearing the pizza.
Move to a wooden board or chopping board before cutting into pieces with a pizza wheel or pizza rocker.
If cooking subsequent pizza , close the oven and allow 5 to 10 minutes for the baking tray and oven to recharge its heat.
*** Pizza sucks the life blood out of a crisper plate or pizza stone***
*** Baking tray may drop as much as 60 degrees during cooking ***
Cooking on Wood Fired Oven
Ensure the floor oven is 300 degrees minimum, this may take several hours of burning with a large fire that would be approximately half the size of the oven floor area.
You can’t get a pizza oven hot enough !!
Ensuring the oven floor is roasting hot is essential as a pizza needs to cook evenly bottom through to the top ( otherwise you will have burnt cheese and a pale limp base as the oven chamber is too fast for the oven floor).
Reduce fire to a quarter of the size of the oven floor.
Ensure all ash has been removed from the floor, either by fanning the ash back onto the fire or using a damp clean mop
Ensure your pizza is defrosted and room temperature.
Place pizza on your peel and place pizza in the oven on the opposite side to the fire.
Your pizza will initially stick, this is normal ,gently work the edges with your peel to loosen the pizza.
Once the pizza is loosened, rotate the pizza 180 degrees to ensure even cooking.
Once evenly cooked remove before the cheese begins to burn.
Gas Braai
Place pizza stone on your gas braai.
Ensure your pizza stone is at least 100mm (4in) away from the gas burner, other wise the pizza stone my crack.
Allow the stone 30 mins to properly heat right through , even if you have an infrared gun and it tells you 300 degrees in 10 minutes ,it is just a surface temp. A pizza stone needs saturated heat.
Place pizza on stone , cover with a lid, check pizza after 3mins , remove if cooked.
Check base has cooked underneath.
*** Pizza sucks the life blood out of a pizza stone, you would be amazed***
*** Pizza stone can drop by as much as 60 degrees during cooking, always allow the stone to recover for 5 to 10 minutes before placing the next pizza on the stone.***