This Is The Secret To Crispy Homemade Pizza (No Pizza Oven Required)

I’ve considered opening a pizzeria no less than three times in my life. Usually while making homemade pizza, when I’m feeling particularly confident about my ability to stretch a ball of dough into something vaguely circular. Then I take it out of the oven. And remember why I’m not a professional pizza chef.

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There’s nothing quite as disappointing as spending ages making your own pizza, only to pick up a slice and watch the entire thing flop over. Cheese sliding off, toppings falling everywhere, the base somehow both cooked and soggy.

I wanted pizza, not a wet tortilla with an identity crisis.

Thankfully, Paul Hollywood has shared a little trick for getting a crispier pizza crust at home. And given that the man has made an entire television career out of judging other people’s baking, I’m inclined to listen.

How Does Paul Hollywood Make His Pizza Crust Crispy?

Anyone who’s watched The Great British Bake Off knows that Paul Hollywood takes his baked goods seriously. Particularly when it comes to soggy bottoms. And while that’s usually a problem reserved for pies and pastries, it turns out the same principle applies to pizza.

In a recent YouTube video, Hollywood recommended turning your regular kitchen oven up as high as it will go and letting it preheat for at least 90 minutes. Hollywood also recommends keeping a pizza stone inside the oven while it heats up. The idea is to get the stone extremely hot before you put your dough on it. When the pizza hits that surface, the base starts cooking immediately, helping it develop a crispier crust.

It’s the same general principle behind those incredibly hot pizza ovens you see in restaurants―except instead of buying an entirely separate appliance, you’re making the most of the oven you’ve already got. Which I appreciate, because my kitchen doesn’t need another piece of equipment I’ll use three times before forgetting it exists.

How To Get A Crispy Pizza Crust In A Regular Oven

The 90-minute wait sounds excessive, but there’s a reason Hollywood recommends it.

Professional pizza ovens can get much hotter than your average kitchen oven. Some reach temperatures of 700 to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while home ovens generally top out around 500 to 550 degrees. That extra heat helps cook pizza quickly and gives the base a chance to crisp up before the toppings become overdone.

And before you get any ideas about switching on the broiler to speed things up, don’t. The broiler heats your pizza unevenly, so you could end up with burnt toppings and a base that’s still undercooked―which would be a rather impressive way to make an already disappointing pizza even worse.

Since your home oven can’t reach the temperatures of a professional pizza oven, preheating the pizza stone thoroughly helps make up some of the difference. You don’t necessarily need a pizza stone, either. A cast-iron skillet or an upside-down baking sheet can work as an alternative, provided it’s rated for the temperature you’re using.

Just make sure whatever you’re using goes into the oven before the pizza. And be careful when handling the hot surface. Ninety minutes at maximum temperature is a fairly effective way to turn an innocent-looking baking tray into a weapon.

How Practical Is Paul Hollywood’s Hack?

I do have one complaint about Hollywood’s method, though.

By the time I’ve decided I want pizza, I’m usually already hungry. Waiting another hour and a half before I can even start cooking it requires a level of foresight I simply don’t possess. Still, I suppose I could make the dough while the oven heats up. Maybe prepare the toppings, clean the kitchen, do a load of laundry, learn a new language.

Or just order a pizza.

But where’s the fun in that? Besides, if Paul Hollywood ever happened to walk into my kitchen, I’d quite like to have a pizza that didn’t make him mutter something about a soggy bottom.