First, I work at a great place, with an awesome boss. I came into work a few months ago and he said “Hey, people were asking about getting a pizza oven for the office…” and I was like “Hell Yeah!” and then I had some comments and eventually I offered to make some recommendations.
And now you’re like “Hey man, you don’t even own a pizza oven!” and you’re right… I do not! I use my home oven. Whatever, man. Someone reminded me I offered to do a mini-review so that’s what you’re reading.
We got the Cuisinart Indoor Pizza Oven at work. It was listed at $284.99 USD.
First of all, it’s small. That’s okay. It can bake a pizza quickly. It goes up to 700° F so that’s a quick bake for a Neapolitan style pizza. My home oven goes to 550° F so baking takes about 5 or 6 minutes with a 1/4″ steel. This oven has a stone. I will say that sliding things on and off of the stone doesn’t seem as nice as the steel…
I tend to bake my pizzas on parchment paper, which works fine at 550° but will probably burn quite a bit at 700°. I did try a 600° bake and definitely got some burned parchment, so I typically just set it around 550°/575° when I use it. Just because that is what I’m used to. If this was the pizza oven I had at home I’d work on baking at the full 700°.
You also get a (foldable!) pizza peel, which is metal (mine at home is wood) and a pan that fits perfectly inside the oven, which is good, because it’s an odd size and they maximize the space with the pan. (I have not used the pan yet.)
One more thing. The oven is loud. It uses fan when running, either to distribute heat, or keep something(?) cool inside while heating. It also uses the fans to cool it down, so when you are done using it you need to leave it plugged in until it cools properly. Maybe it cools the electronics so they don’t cook. I don’t know. It’s noisy, just be aware of that.
Okay, so how are the pizzas? Great! The one thing I need to get used to is to rotate the pizza 180 degrees! I often forget this because I don’t need to do it at home in my normal oven. The back is definitely hotter than the front, so rotate halfway through. I probably baked the one pictured above at 550° for 5 or 6 minutes. Ideally I’d do 3 minutes, then rotate and do another 3 minutes. (If I remember!)
Would I get one for home? I would not, but only because I don’t have room for more specialized appliances, and my home oven pizza game is solid. If you don’t have a home oven that can go to 550° F it might be worth it, but a pizza steel is cheap and a great way to get started making better pizzas. Okay, that’s it. Mini-review over.
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