If you’re cooking in a wood fired DIY pizza oven, you need to know that pizzas need less time to cook than in a conventional oven – plus you get that unique natural smoky flavour.
With such delicious flavours and simple preparation and cooking, you’ll be wondering why it took you so long to serve up wood fired pizzas from your own backyard!
For starters
Quality ingredients are a must for any great meal. Make sure you buy fresh, tasty vegetables and meats.. The taste will be directly proportional to the quality of the ingredients!.
Mix and knead your own dough, it’s not hard, takes only a few minutes and tastes a lot better.
Have some fun experimenting with different cheeses. Mozzarella is the all-time favourite, but other traditional cheeses include provolone, pecorino, fontina, gorgonzola and parmesan. However, if you like experimenting, you can try out different types of cheese or make your own combinations, such as goat’s cheese or brie.
One handy tip is to use blocks of cheese rather than having it shaved or grated. This prevents burning and makes the topping bubbly and perfect.
Preparing your gourmet pizza oven
The fire should be started around one and a half hours before you want to start cooking the pizzas. Initially, the fire should be made in the middle of the oven floor, and then gradually eased outwards so that the entire oven floor is heated – you’ll need to keep adding wood as you do this.
Cooking perfect pizza
When the temperature is between 350-400˚c the dome of the oven will turn white, or clear and all the soot will burn away and disappear. Your oven is now ready to cook your pizza. Move the coals to one side of the oven and place your pizza in the centre of the floor. Your pizza should be cooked to perfection in approximately 3 minutes. And to ensure that all sides get that delicious, crispy crust, remember to rotate the pizza after about a minute so that each side gets to face the hot coals.
And there you have it – gourmet pizza that will delight your family and guests and make your home the most popular house in the neighbourhood
