I've put the pizza in the oven on a pizza pan just until the crust is firm enough to hold its shape, taken it out and topped it, and then slid it off the pan directly onto the bottom rack.

This pizza is beyond fantastic but needs to be started the day before. Minimal work. You can use his recipe for sauce, use your own, or open a bottle. Our oven only goes to 450 but it works fine if you add a minute or two to the cooking time. His technique using cast iron pans allows browning of the bottom, if extra is needed, by putting it onto your range for a few minutes. No pizza stone or peel is needed.

Foolproof Pan Pizza by Kenji Lopez-Alt

The cast iron skillet will work well; I've done it that way before. You can also turn the cookie sheet upside down and slide the pizza onto it with the pizza peel.

My cookie sheets do not have sides, and so they would not have to be turned upside down. In fact, I can use them as pizza peels. Only my jellyroll pans and baking sheets have sides.

I used to bake pizza in a jellyroll pan/baking sheet and therefore made it rectangular. The main thing is to get the dough the correct thickness. I've also made pizza on a cast-iron comal, but that was no better than a regular baking sheet.

Cast iron skillet is good for a deep dish pizza but is too small to make a thin crust pizza, unless you want a very small one.

When I was a kid we made pizza on a cookie sheet. I let the dough rise once in the bread machine. Grease the cookie sheet with margarine or butter, then shake corn meal onto it, thinly. Then press the dough onto the cookie sheet, forming it up the sides of the pan. Add your sauce. Chopped veggies. Meat & motzarella cheese. Bake @ 450 on the lower rack, put an empty cookie sheet right above it...to keep the top from baking as quickly. Bake for 20 minutes if the crust is really thick, less for thin crust....then remove the top pan, cook for another 3 minutes.

When I could eat pizza, I just used parchment paper & a cookie sheet as a peel, like Lars said. Slide the pizza on parchment off the peel and onto the Weber gas grill. The parchment that isn't covered with pizza will get brittle but the parchment underneath the pizza doesn't. You can crank the Weber up to 500 degrees easy. Plus you don't heat up the kitchen if you're baking pizza during the summer.

I forgot to add that I use unglazed quarry tile on the Weber! Slide the pizza on parchment onto the hot quarry tiles. I had a couple of pizza stones but they broke. Bonus w/ the tiles is that they stack nicely in the outdoor cabinet when not needed.

Good for you to disparage something you haven't tried and know nothing about. Do that much?

I would use the cookie sheet Lucille and not heat the oven over 450. Instead of making one large pizza, make two personnal sized ones so they will fit. I would also line the sheet with parchment paper if you have it or foil if you don’t so you don’t risk having cheese burn onto the pan. If you add veggies, put them on top of the cheese instead of under so they don’t make your crust soggy.

Also, if you ever feel like home made pizza, but don’t want the mess of making the crust, the Boboli pizza crusts are really good. Let us know how it goes!

Now I want pizza.

Hope it turned out well! What pan did you end up using? It's been so long since I've baked without a stone in the oven I have/had no advice there.

I used the aluminum, I think it would have been better using Elmer's posted recipe with the frying pan, I have several cast iron skillets, but it was too late to change.

I have a nearby Domino's and also and Italian restaurant that delivers, so fortunately I have choices. Right now the ready made store pizzas and the frozen products are just not what I want.

I make mine in a cast iron skillet. My 10" skillet makes a thicker crust, and when I prefer thin crust I use my 12" skillet. Either way, it makes good pizzas.

For regular pizza, I use frozen bread dough and squish it out to the shape of the cookie sheet, top and bake and cut into squares. So good.

@Elmer, yeah, I've never tried making "pizza" on the back of a cookie sheet. Slapping a round piece of dough with cheese and toppings in the oven does not make it a "pizza".

Here's my handcrafted pie. Let's see yours.

So in actuality, the extend of your pizza making knowledge is links and pictures you found on the internet. Got it.

I've made lots of pizzas in my electric oven with no stone or peel. I partially prebake my crusts on parchment paper on a thin aluminum baking sheet, and then bake the pizza with toppings. We like thin and crispy, not thick and doughy. if you spread some cheese on the crust before adding the sauce, it helps keep it from getting soggy.

I also like to make mini crusts about 6-8 inches, rather than one large crust, or I will make a large rectangular crust rather than round, to fill the baking sheet.

Hope it came out well. Making pizza is fun, no need to get too fussy about it.

I want pizza now too, only I want the square pizza from my childhood grade school back in Nevada, with chocolate milk. I think it was served with corn too, every Friday. Wish I could find a recipe just to see if it is really as good as I remember it.

I got a pizza pan which is a nonstick round thin thing that has about 3/8" holes perforating the bottom to let the heat in. Haven't made pizza at home in years though. I love pizza. I don't like what it does to me on the scale the next morning!

Mega B, you pizza does look good -- a thin crust, sauce and cheese only?

AmyLou, I'd eat that 'pizza thing' in a heartbeat -- but not often, it looks rich!

Jasdip, beautiful pizzas -- what I think of when I think "pizza."

When I want thin crust, I 'smear' a highly hydrated dough on a parchment paper sheet, lightly top with fixings, and bake on an oven stone. For medium crust, I'll often shape and bake the bare crust until it's mostly done, then pull it out, top it, put it back in to brown up the cheeses. But my favorite recently is like Elmer's -- overnight no-knead dough, long slow rise in a well oiled iron skillet. I use King Arthur's 2020 recipe of the year.

I'm waiting for my Ooni Koda pizza oven to be delivered. I ordered it in late July but it was back ordered and won't be delivered until early November according to the latest order status. It will get up to 900F and bake a pizza in less than 2 minutes!

Until then I am content with Papa Murphy's take and bake pizza. They are actually very good. I live about 30 minutes from the nearest PMs and am working from home. If I want to get one I have to make a special trip into town after their opening time of 11:00 am.

Now I want the pizza that an Italian friend made. It was very simple and what her mother taught her when she was a young girl in Italy. Make the crust then pour olive oil on it. Sprinkle with a mixture of dried and fresh herbs including fennel seeds. Only fresh herb that was required was fresh basil which she added both as chopped and small leaves. In winter the fennel seeds were soaked in oil overnight. For me she added cheese which was semi soft in texture and very sharp in flavor. The crust was thinner but not what Americans call thin but also not thick as most regular pizza doughs.

Ooni Koda

Lone Jack, I've read about them, would love a review when you get yours.

I always spread a thin layer of olive oil on the raw dough, too, along with copious amounts of raw garlic.

The two things that really improved my pizzas was using the brine from canned ripe olives as the liquid when I made the dough and baking the pie on the Weber. I don't know how hot the Weber was because the temp probe pegs out at 550 degrees. So, something in excess of 550.

I ordered a Ooni Koda Pizza oven last week from Williams Sonoma because they said it would be delivered Oct 1-5, whereas Amazon and the Ooni site gave delivery dates in November. The tracking says that it is back ordered but still scheduled to be delivered first week of October. I'll believe that when I see it. I'm having it delivered to my Cathedral City house, but I'm not there right now, although I will be next week.

In L.A., we use the Big Green Egg for grilling pizza, and it works extremely well. It gets hot enough to melt aluminum (1100°F) if we use the right wood.

Will do Lucille!

Lars - did you order the Ooni Koda 16 or the smaller one?

I just looked at the W.S. website and the smaller one now says late November delivery and the 16" says Oct. 15-19. Did you order a pizza peel as well?

They seem to be very popular in the age of Covid-19!!

Ooni Koda pizza oven = FANCY!

Lone Jack, I ordered the Ooni Koda 16 - I have no need for a smaller one. I did not order a pizza peel as I already have two of those, but I might get a smaller one later. I bought mine at a restaurant supply store, and I can go back there for an additional one. The aluminum one I have is 16" wide, and so it might be too big for the Ooni Koda 16.

All these pizzas look so good. I especially would like a piece of Mega bauti's cheese pizza! I love cheese pizza.

I go the quick and easy method at times by using Naan bread. It works ok.

Jack, my oven got delivered early - on Sept 16, and that made me happy. I did buy a smaller peel to go with it, as it is impossible to cook a pizza in this oven without one, I think.

We could probably put Naan bread in this oven as well.

Lars....How are you liking your pizza oven? I know it cooks faster than a regular oven...but how's the taste if it's NOT a wood oven? Ace Hardware here,sells Ooni's and another brand of pizza oven.... one that costs $6K. Rachel Ray has a pizza oven INDOORS built into her kitchen. There must be something to this......?????

Nicole, we haven't set it up yet, although we will do that this afternoon. I plan to make my first pizza on it tomorrow, and I will let you know how it turns out. I'm going to have Kevin watch a video on it first, in case he agrees to bake the first one.

I also plan to make a Sunbrella cover for this oven, but I have very few scraps left over, and I am reluctant to start using the expensive Agra Classic fabric that I just reordered, but I think I will have enough of that, if necessary.

Lars: I keep checking back and waiting for your review, can't wait to hear!!

For everyone: when you make your home made pizza, what is your preferred size/diameter? (And why?)

Lars I have a FREE shipping code for Fabricguru.com if you want to order a remnant of Sunbrella fabric...to make a cover for your Ooni. 15up It's good through Oct 2.

Axel would be cute

I use a 16" pizza pan & I own a 16" stone I never use. It's the max my 30" oven will hold and still have an inch to spare. ☺ Also a 16" pizza pan holds a 3 cups of flour recipe of dough.

Thanks, Nicole. I will be looking into that. I do need some more scraps.

We're putting off the pizza for a couple of days because we are getting our new sofa tomorrow and have to rearrange a lot of things before we pick it up. Then tomorrow, we have to do more rearranging...

We did take the oven out of the box, but we have to season it first, which involves heating it for 30 minutes, allow it to cool down for two hours, and then clean off the debris. Maybe we can do that tomorrow.

Kevin is so busy with work that he does not have time to watch pizza videos, and so I will have to coach him or else bake the first ones myself.

Here's what I ordered from Fabric Guru, in the way of scraps:

Giraffe

and Jenga

I think the Jenga would be nice for a pizza oven cover - there might not be enough of it for a BBQ cover - it will be close. I calculated that I need 55", but 1.5 yards is only 54", and so it might be a bit short. Maybe they will be generous with their measurement.

Anyway, I won't be making any covers until I receive all the fabric I have ordered - the covers can wait.

The pizza is going to have to wait also, as it is 110° today and will be as hot tomorrow - a bit too hot for cooking outdoors with a 932° pizza oven. I hope to get a pizza made in the new oven by this week-end.

Thanks, Nicole, for the discount info!

Update on the fabric to cover my pizza oven:

Fabric was shipped from Birmingham, Alabama to Nashville, Tennessee. Then it went to a small town in Missouri, and from there to Wyoming and then to North Salt Lake City, Utah. This is a very roundabout way to get to Palm Springs from Alabama. They should have gone through Dallas and El Paso or through OK City and Flagstaff, Arizona. No need to go further north than that.

I bought some 00 flour today to make pizza dough, which will happen this afternoon.

Lars - they could have put it on a intermodal train from Birmingham to LA and it could have been there by now. Birmingham - Meridian, MS - Shreveport - LA. That sounds like how DHL ships things.

I don't know what service was used for your purchase, lars, but you can be sure if it was one of the majors - UPS, Fed Ex, DHL, etc - they are experts in managing logistics and traffic. That's the core of the business and they have VERY complex computer systems to optimize the consequences of the routing and handling decisions.

It has nothing to do with looking at a map, considering one carrier's route or direct directions one would follow if driving. It's all about consolidation, load management, shipment and trip minimization, and many other factors, all within the bounds of the promised service duration for the service paid for.

Like others, I often find shipment routing curious. But not puzzling, the experts know what they're doing. So long as it arrives, that's what matters

I like that giraffe print a lot, Lars.

Oh, yes, those package routing contortions. I ordered one of those Amazon Warehouse deals--an inversion table. I was entertained and amused with tracking the package as it wended its way from SoCal to Wisconsin. When it got here, the pkg looked like it have been to hell & back. Amazon's description did say the package was damaged when I ordered it. I think it must have acquired a few more bumps & bruises getting here. The machine itself was fine though, not even a bit of scuffed paint.

Kevin told me that it sounds like the package got routed incorrectly. He works with shipping companies a lot and said that that often happens with Fedex especially. This order is taking a full week to be in transit but is scheduled to arrive this Wednesday. I'm okay with that, as we will still be here, and I will not have to redirect the delivery. USPS will make the final delivery.

Fedex employees may be experts at what they do, but according to Kevin, they make a lot of mistakes - they are certainly not infallible. Since my package only has fabric, there is not much chance of it getting damaged, and I am okay with the shipping time.

Here's my review of the pizza oven.

A quick look, not guaranteed to be accurate, suggested that FedEx delivers 10 million items per day. Assume average transit time is 3 days, that means there are 30 million items in the system on a normal day.

If the achieved error rate were as low as one tenth of one percent of actions (.001), that would mean there are 30,000 errors made every day. I'm sure the error rate is higher than that. So back to my comment, the delivery folks are experts at what they do. But no one and nothing is perfect.

They certainly aren't perfect, and my brother has to deal with their errors constantly.

My package arrived in North Salt Lake on Sunday, sat there all day on Monday, and it's next destination is Salt Lake City, which is taking two full days from North Salt Lake. This will make six times that it will have changed hands from Birmingham, Alabama on its way to Palm Springs. Kevin said this is excessive and certainly not efficient, even for Fedex. This is nowhere close to being perfect - it is quite the opposite. It is one thing not to be perfect, it is quite another thing to be grossly inefficient.

I've had issues where the sender put the wrong address on the package, and so this may have happened here as well. I won't know whose fault it is until I receive the package.

I got my Breville Crispy Crust pizza maker, will try it out today. This is not their much more expensive pizza smart oven, it is a small pizza ,maker that makes 12 inch pizzas. I had one for years and was very happy with it. It gets a little hotter than an ordinary oven but not so hot as their smart oven, and of course nowhere near the Ooni. But it is easy to use indoors.

I spent a number of hours research videos of pizza making and decided to try freezing a whole cooked pizza. The Zojirushi makes enough for 3 twelve inch pizzas, but I saw many reviews on freezing dough and they came up with different opinions, so before I try that, I will experiment with the time saving freeze-the-whole-pizza.

I am perfectly happy to microwave pizza the next day to reheat it, and when I buy delivery pizza I always have leftover pizza, but this experiment will test a frozen pizza stored for a week, if I can keep my hands off of it for that long.

I never microwave pizza to reheat it - I generally reheat it in a toaster oven, and I mist it with water first, so that it does not get too dried out.

I'm not a fan of reheated leftover pizza - I prefer to eat it cold or slightly warmed (depending on the cheese it has), and I treat it like focaccia when it it leftover.

I have found that I only like thicker crust pizzas reheated, as a rule, and I also prefer whole wheat crust pizza reheated to white wheat crust pizza reheated.

Eventually I will try to make a whole wheat version of a Neapolitan pizza, but for now, I am trying to make just what we will consume in one evening.

I think a frozen homemade pizza should be fine, as long as your protect it from freezer burn.

An observation, and a thank you to Lars: I started this thread to get pizza advice. I've receive a lot of it and I am very appreciative.

Of course, there are always a few who take the opportunity to denigrate: 'Slapping a round piece of dough with cheese and toppings in the oven does not make it a "pizza".'

See how Lars disagreed with my microwave pizza ways, above, but he does so not by disparaging but by describing in detail how he does it himself in a way that makes others want to try too.

It's hard not to like Lars. I think by carefully reading what likable people say and how they say it, you can not only make better pizza, you can make a better you.

I'm only pointing this out because of another recent post 'just because someone throws the ball, you don't have to catch it' was an amazing epiphany, and sometimes by pointing out what you find to be really helpful, maybe more people will read it and benefit.

Re the recipe Elmer posted. Looks good and is a variation on the one I've been using from either Milk St or Cooks. BUT--it makes two pizzas. Too much for a 1 person household. Does anyone know if the dough for the 2nd pizza can be frozen either before or after the first rise?

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6004677/frozen-pizza-crusts#n=14

I don't remember the recipe that Elmer posted, but the one I used recently also makes only one 16" pizza or two 12" pizzas.

One thing you can do it combine the flour, instant dry yeast, and salt, weigh that and then divide it equally in half before adding the water (and oil, if you add that). You could then freeze the flour and yeast mixture and just add water when you want pizza dough. It would take as long to let frozen dough defrost, and so the time would be about the same. You would have to label what the missing ingredients are so that you would know what to add.

I find it extremely quick and easy to mix small amounts of dough. Having the flour, yeast, and salt already measured out and stored in the freezer might save a bit of time, but I tend to make just what I want to use.

laceyvail,

I do make that pizza from time to time. I like thin, DH likes pan. I can't answer the question about freezing, but I can tell you that I halve the recipe and it works fine. It is also a REALLY good pan pizza.