Pizza Express Wood Fired Oven

[Fortun Bawa]

Marcinhad kindly included bags of flour (white, wholewheat and gluten free), dry yeast and tinned tomatoes to help us create pizzas. I made my own marinara sauce to use with toppings of ham, mushroom, pepperoni and grated mozzarella. Yum.

Authentic pizza dough might take days to get ready but the pizza oven itself takes minutes. You have to heat the oven for about 12 minutes to get things started. After that, you use the wooden spatulas provided to slide your pizza onto the oven and get cooking.

Pizza Express (the restaurant) had posted their Margherita pizza recipe online during lockdown. So we made a version of it with our own toppings that took around half an hour from start to finish. They turned out nicely although I could definitely tell the difference in flavour. However, the boys wolfed them down and gave the quickie pizzas four thumbs up.

Uju Asika is a writer, blogger and creative consultant. She is the author of Raising Boys Who Do Better: A Hopeful Guide for a New Generation (DK/Penguin Random House), Bringing Up Race: How to Raise a Kind Child in a Prejudiced World (Yellow Kite/Hachette UK) and the delightful picture book A World for Me and You, illustrated by Jennie Poh (Hachette Children's Group). Uju's books are available at Bookshop.org, Amazon, Waterstones and other good bookshops. Follow Uju @babesabouttown on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram.

If you like pizza, then never, ever go to Naples. We like pizza, and we went to Naples, choosing to eat at Pizzeria Brandi. What followed was an education on the meaning of a real, Neapolitan pizza, and a grumpy rejection of anything that falls short. In the U.K., it is still fairly difficult to buy genuine pizza outside of London, and making it at home is really very hard indeed. So, in going to Naples and eating the pizza there, we have completely gone and shot ourselves in the metaphysical pizza foot.

Pizzas cooked in very hot, wood-fired ovens have a chewy crust, and a barbecued taste that is really not like the pizzas you can make in a domestic oven. They are also very different to the pizzas you might get from a Dominos or Pizza Express in the UK.

If you don't have the fancy oven, then heat a pizza stone for an hour in an oven at 250C. Cook the pizza on the stone in the oven until lightly browned and bubbling. This will take about 20 mins. If you lack the stone too, then you can use a baking tray, but remember to pre-heat this too and work quickly because baking trays cool down very fast. You will end up with a 'export'-style pizza.

Full disclosure: I am an Ooni ambassador, and I get a small commission if you purchase items using the affiliate links in this post. That being said, however, all of the opinions in this post are my own, and the instructions and recommendations apply to any outdoor pizza oven you can buy or make yourself.

First, find a sturdy, heatproof surface for your outdoor oven. If your oven doesn't come with it's own cart or stand, get the exact measurements online (or take them yourself), then build or purchase an outdoor table that is slightly bigger than the pizza oven and tall enough so you won't have to crouch down to launch and retrieve pizzas. This one's perfect for my small backyard*, but I also love Ooni's modular tables, which clip together so your prep space can be right next to the oven**.

And that brings me to the second most important part of your outdoor pizza kitchen setup. Where will you stretch and top your dough? Your prep station can be as utilitarian or fancy as you like (mine is two sawhorses* with a jumbo cutting board on top). Just make sure it's close to your oven so you don't get frazzled. Many home pizza ovens can get up to 1,000 degrees and cook pizzas in a minute or less, which means you've got to work quickly. Invest in a bar-height table like this one* or the modular tables I mentioned above, or build the outdoor kitchen of your (and my) dreams (and then share a photo so I can live vicariously through you).

Once you have a sturdy, safe place for your pizza oven to sit and a surface for stretching and topping the pizza dough, it's time to gather your pizza-making tools. Here are the basic must-haves, with some useful extras woven in:

** As an Ooni associate, I get a small commission when someone purchases a product using the links in this post. However, I only recommend products I can vouch for myself and that I believe will benefit my readers.

I learned about Ooni through your site last year, and finally bit the bullet a few months ago. Can't express how much I love this product. It is simple to set up and use, and this video has helped shed light on how to better shimmy the pizza onto the hot surface. I've really struggled with that, but I will try your technique. Can you share a link for the pizza peel you used when removing the pie from the oven? Thanks for the video!

If the edges of the crust burn before the center of the dough is cooked, my guess is that you are not stretching out your dough thinly enough. If that is not the problem, try reducing the temperature of your oven, making sure the dough is stretched out thin and evenly, and then bake the pizza for slightly longer--just until the bottom is evenly browned. Let me know ho it goes!

We are Italian based wood fired pizzeria. Our dough is made of using natural ingredients Caputo 00 flour, natural yeast and salt. And it is fermented for at least 48 hours, which gives the dough the authentic texture.We cook our pizza in Authentic Italian Wood Fired Oven at 400 degree Celsius.

So I decided the Roccbox was the one I wanted, but at 499 it was not a decision I took lightly. But hey, the only money I ever spend is on the business, so thought I deserved a new toy and there was a code for free delivery too (usually 19). The Roccbox has the the option to both wood fire your pizzas or take the convenient route of gas. I ordered it on the Sunday, had the dispatch email on Monday. In preparation for Tuesdays arrival I headed out to get a few ingredients and made the dough. The usual suspects including a good tomato base sauce, mozzarella, prosciutto, pepperoni etc. I usually make my own tomato base sauce but just bought a good quality passata instead (we like to use the Pizza Express Pizza Sauce from Tesco).

Place a piece of cling film over your scales and weigh out the dough balls into 200g each, place them on a floured tray (we like to add a little cornmeal too, for extra crunch) and cover with cling film until you are ready. Remember the Roccbox pizza oven takes approx 15-25 minutes to heat up to temperature. Start by using your fingers in the centre of the dough ball to flatten out the dough and stretch to around 10 inches. Leave a centimeter or two at the edges untouched as this will puff up in the over. Add your toppings and away you go.

The second was the same but with pepperoni. I thought it might take a little time to get the knack and expected some disasters but everything was perfect. The pizza edges start to puff up almost instantly and you can watch the pizza cook in around 90 seconds turning every 20 seconds to make sure it cooks evenly.

After a night our with a few mates, I thought breakfast pizza could be a great idea. Apart from the dough preparation, it was just as quick as cooking a fry up. As the Roccbox cooks pizzas so quickly, you need to pre cook some of your ingredients. We pre cooked black pudding, streaky bacon and sausages. We also like to pre cook the mushrooms too. Spread on all the toppings over a tomato base leaving a little space in the middle for your egg, and cover to your liking with grated mozzarella. Crack the egg into the centre and slide into the oven. As it was fairly loaded with toppings it took a little longer. Just make sure you turn regularly for a nice even cook.

It can be REALLY frustrating. Especially when you know HOW a good pizza has been made, how to make the dough yourself and when you have a pizza oven at home. You really appreciate the taste of a freshly cooked pizza with delicious fresh ingredients topped with vegan cheese with fresh basil and garlic olive oil.

The Lion at Thurne pub offer delicious gluten free pizzas too. I had one during a trip along the Norfolk Broads and we discovered this lovely pub called the Lion with a beer garden and it just so happened that their menu included gluten free pizzas with vegan cheese.

Add red onion in between areas, dot some red peppers, jalapenos around. Then top with cheese, sprinkle your chilli flakes, add a few bits of garlic and put on your pizza shovel. Carefully shove it in the oven (convential or wood fired) 3-5 minutes depending on your base. Remove with pizza paddle/shovel.

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When you first start cooking pizza in a wood fired oven, you will probably go through a process of trial and error! Learning the different results you can get from different temperatures and cooking times takes practice - though it is worth it when you finally perfect that pizza!

First of all, you need to create your dough. You can start this an hour or so before you begin heating your wood fire oven up, which should give you plenty of time - allowing up to an hour for the dough to proof.

The great thing about making your own homemade pizza dough is that you only need a few ingredients in your store cupboard, and you can make it any time - all that goes into it is flour, yeast, a little bit of salt and sugar and a drizzle of oil.

You don't need a rolling pin to shape your dough - it's actually better to do it by hand to get that authentic taste. You also want to avoid rolling it too thin. Simply give your work surface a dusting of flour and, with lightly floured hands, begin to spread the dough out from the centre with the heel of your hand. Once you've stretched it out to about a 20cm diameter, flip it over and continue stretching until it's about 30cm across. For a classic, thin crust wood fired pizza, it should be about 1/2 centimetre thick.

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