You’ve got the best pizza dough for your home kitchen oven (Doctor Dough). Now what? Let's turn your Doctor Dough pizza dough into a wood-fired, puffy, airy crust. But first, we need the right tools.
Home Kitchen Oven
Whether you have a gas, electric, hybrid or propane home kitchen oven, they all work well, once you discover your home kitchen oven's temperature sweet spot, that is.
At last count, Doctor Dough has identified over 1160 kagillion different configurations for a home kitchen oven to make the best pizza. The placement of the rack within the oven is one of the more critical parts of this whole adventure. Basically, experiment with rack placement based on how your pizza looks post-cook. If the top and bottom of your pizza are not cooking evenly, a move up or down can make a world of difference.
Doctor Dough World HQ has it’s oven rack on the second rung from the top. The top rung burnt the top while anything past the second rung would undercook the top of the pizza. This exact placement of the rack plus the convection roast setting, plus the baking steel, give the Dough family a perfect pizza every time.
Oven Thermometers: The Home Cook’s Second Opinion
Ovens are machines. Like any machine, they sometimes degrade over time. Temperatures start to drift away from what you set the dial to, either higher or lower. Due to time and use, the convection fan just doesn’t get that air circulating as well as the younger version of itself once did. One action you can take to help correct this eventual decline is use an oven-safe thermometer. This type of thermometer is heat-resistant to a stated value on the package, and is meant to rest inside your oven. This is a great way to check the expected temperature against the actual temperature.
An inexpensive dial type thermometer that hangs from an oven rack costs about $10.00. You can go crazy with a WiFi enabled internet-connected thermometer that will set you back about as much as the oven itself, if that’s your thing. Just get some kind of reliable oven safe thermometer and start there. That alone could help you adjust your temperature to get more accuracy across all your home oven uses.
Baking Surface: The Thing Your Pizza Booty Touches
The Doctor is talking about pizza stones, cast iron pizza pans and baking steels. Let’s get this out of the way: NO, you may not use a baking sheet/cookie sheet. "But Doctor Dough, my baking sheet is really sturdy." NO! "Oh Doctor Dough, I know my baking sheet can do the job because my grandma..." NO! "Doctor Dough, I saw this ad on Instagram for these cookie sheets that double as underground bunkers..." NO, but cool!
There's a reason Doctor Dough is adamant about not using a cookie sheet as a baking surface. It does not have the ability to hold onto heat from your mighty home kitchen oven. The Doctor could go on and on about thermodynamics, but that's another blog post. The cookie sheet that Grandma Auntie Nona gave you won’t make a good pizza because it just can’t hold onto that much heat.
There are three main components of pizza stonery that one can use in order to achieve that perfect pizza booty. "What booty is that Doctor Dough," hopefully somebody asked? The leopard spotting, spread evenly across the underside of the pizza. The pizza stone is the single piece of equipment that is key to making great pizza at home, without a pizza oven. Luckily, they vary in price and effectiveness, so that there is something for every budget.
Pizza Stone:
This is the one stone that is actual stone. (Doctor Dough usually refers to all cooking surfaces as “pizza stones”. We’re pizza positive and love them all.) They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and finishes. Pizza stones are as inexpensive as $20, and go up well past $100. If you already have a pizza stone that has been languishing in the dark regions of your home, and it’s at least 12 inches square, you should use that. If not, and you see something online that looks half decent, go for it. Doctor Dough has tested a range of pizza stones from cheap to insanely expensive, and found them all to make a great pizza in your home kitchen oven. One note of caution: Pizza stones are fragile. There’s no need to tip toe around it, but definitely don’t drop it.
Cast Iron:
As a pizza cooking surface, cast iron provides excellent heat retention. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and finishes. They are as inexpensive as $20 and go up well past $100. The price is largely determined on size and thickness. More iron equals more money. A flat cast iron surface that is at least 12 inches square and about 3/16 inches thick will be a beast of an item. This will also make you a great pizza in your home kitchen oven. Even some of the newer, “light” cast iron pieces will get the job done well. Thicker, in the case of a cast iron pizza pan, is better.
Two notes of caution: One, cast iron is heavy. Dropping one of these items can easily crush your foot or destroy your floor. The second word of caution is maintenance. Cast iron needs some love, like any item you use in your home kitchen. It needs to be washed, with soap! It needs to be fully dried, immediately. And depending on the level of seasoning, you may need to deal with that as well. This does not have to happen immediately after pizza night is over. But eventually, it does. The good news is that it sounds way more time intensive than it actually is. After a few good pizza nights of cooking on cast iron, it gets even easier to maintain.
Pro Tip: We've all been there. You AirBnB your dream house on your dream island and life is dreamy. Since you’re there for a while, you need to make pizza. Pizza night arrives, you look for a pizza stone and NUTHIN! Nada. You panic! You freak! You curse! You remember that :30 seconds ago, you saw a large cast iron pan thoughtfully placed for easy access. You decide to be your own hero and, being the brave individual that you are, you flip that large cast iron pan over, take note of the beautiful flat (mostly) bottom, and decide to go bold. You place that iron pan, upside down, on a rack in the oven. The angels sing. The lawn gnomes dance (why not) and your vacation has been saved by MacGyvering a cast iron pan, upside down.
Baking Steel:
This pizza cooking surface is going to produce a fantastic pizza in your home kitchen oven. Baking steels come in different shapes, sizes, thickness, and even steel itself. Baking steels generally have a higher price than the previous two surface options. They begin around $50 and can easily reach $200. Their size and thickness often determine the price. Like cast iron, more metal means more cost. Doctor Dough routinely uses two different brands of baking steels, each 14 inches by 16 inches by ¼ inch thick. Both steels produce the best pizzas in home kitchen ovens.
This one piece of equipment is truly why you can make excellent pizza without a pizza oven. Their heat retention is the best out of all three options listed here. Like cast iron, baking steels need love in the form of maintenance. They do need to be cleaned from time to time. They also need seasoning from time to time. Like cast iron, the more you use a baking steel, the better the surface becomes and the easier it is to maintain. Baking steels are by far the heaviest option of the three. That is a lot of the reason for their superior cooking abilities.
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