The pizza oven is a great cooking tool to help you make perfect, authentic-inspired pizzas from the comfort of your own home. There are loads to choose from and an ideal gift for anyone who loves pizza or finds solace in cooking and experimenting. But fear not! We've got a quick guide to help you choose the ideal one for your space.
These pizza ovens are perfect if you don't have much outdoor space. These ovens tend to be quite squat, gas or electric-fueled, and easy to place on a suitable tabletop - this also makes them easier to travel with to a friend or family's house so you can share the pizza love. Despite being smaller, they have the traditional stone base of standard pizza ovens, so you don't need to compromise portability and space for authentic taste and quick cooking times. Some tabletop pizza ovens are suitable for use indoors for your convenience, but outdoor versions suitable for smoking foods are available too.
Offering a more impressive feel than the tabletop, free-standing pizza ovens are suitable for your garden alongside the BBQ for great summer meals. These are usually charcoal-powered rather than electric for that gorgeous smokey and fiery flavour, making them great for other things like fish and vegetables. They tend to have long chimneys for regulating the heat and airflow around your pizza oven and have a shelf for fuel or accessory storage. They also have an ash drawer to make it easy to clean once you've made your perfect pizza.
Long considered the most traditional and covetable of the pizza ovens, brick ovens are excellent at keeping in the heat thanks to bricks' thermal properties and cooking at high speeds, helping you make your pizza in less than a minute. Available in both free-standing and tabletop designs, these ovens are best used outdoors and are usually wood-fired. Not only do they look impressive, but they make professional-style pizzas with ease. However, these ovens can take quite some time to prepare and get going - but we think the effort is worth it for that beautiful wood-charred flavour!
Regardless of what kind of oven you have, you're going to need a pizza peel. Pizza peels enable you to place your pizzas in the oven and take them out again quickly and are designed to keep your fingers well away from the fire. Don't forget to pick one up if your oven doesn't come with one! This complete toolset includes two peels, a fire feeding hook, and a cleaning brush if you want to impress.
A tabletop and a free-standing oven should be covered with a rain or dust cover when completely cooled and not in use if you keep it outside. Even if you're storing them in the garage or shed, a cover will help your oven perform its best time and time again, protecting it from everyday weather damage.
We probably don't need to tell you this, but we suggest grabbing a pizza cutter too. Cutting your pizza with a knife doesn't feel the same when you've gone to all that effort cooking with traditional methods!
For more delicious ideas, why not check out our articles below, or explore our complete pizza oven collection?
