People go to great lengths to try and replicate authentic pizza at home. One of the main things separating the pizza you make from the pizzerias is heat. I read about one guy who used the cleaning cycle of his oven to get it really hot and then jerry rigged the latch so he could open it mid-cycle to retrieve the pizza before it turned into a crisp. That is pretty extreme. I also wouldn’t recommend it unless you are well insured and know what you are doing.

This concept is slightly less extreme. In order to achieve a similar level of heat you heat a cast iron pan on the stove, invert it and then use it like a pizza stone and cook the pizza under the broiler. The intense heat of the broiler, combine with all the hotness stored up in the pan, gives you an environment similar to a real pizza oven. Or at least it is supposed. I found out the hard way that you have to do a good job of rolling out the dough. Mine was a little too thick. I had a nice cooked top, a slightly charred crust and in between that was a doughy mess. It all tasted good, but there is definitely a learning curve.

I tried using a soapstone pizza pan I had and a cast iron pan. Both worked really well, so just use what you have. One limitation of this technique is that the bottom of most pans is rather small, maybe 10″ across at best (Pan diameter is measured at the top). If you really like this technique, you might want to check out the Cast Iron Pizza Pan that lodge makes:

It gets hot in the summer here in DC and we have our AC on for most of the time. One of the real advantages of this technique is that you don’t need to preheat the oven and get a large pizza stone hot. I think it will take a few more tries for me to perfect this method, but if it keeps the kitchen cooler and gives good results, I am game!

There is a good write up and some recipes that use this technique in the Atlantic and in Serious Eats. I followed the Serious Eats one when I gave it a try.