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Do all thick based pizzas require an oven temperature of at least 300°C (575°F) to cook better as per our reference manual?

SAJ14SAJ
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    Sorry, I don't understand your question. What does "require to cook better" mean? A pizza bakes better at 300 C than at 200 C. It also bakes better at 400 C than at 300 C. So, does it bake better at 300 C than at lower temperatures? Yes. Does it require a 300 oven to bake? No. Is 300 C some magical border between "better" and "not better"? Logically, such a border cannot exist. – rumtscho Apr 11 '14 at 10:21
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    @rumtscho : or you could assume that as they're asking in °C and the sentance construction that English might not be their native language. – Joe Apr 11 '14 at 15:04
  • @Joe whatever their language is, I am frankly baffled at what they want to know. They are asking if it 300°C are "required", but required for what? Nobody can say "you absolutely need at least 300 Celsius to achieve X", or "You can achieve X at less than 300 Celsius" if X is undefined. If the question is simply whether 300 Celsius are better for pizza than 200, then my comment already answers that. – rumtscho Apr 11 '14 at 15:09
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    I would like some clarification on "thick based pizzas". Usually the very high cooking temps are reserved for thin crusts, and thick crusts are cooked at lower temperatures. – SourDoh Apr 11 '14 at 15:10

3 Answers3

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Absolutely not. There are a lot of tricks to get good thick (or thin) pizza with oven temperatures under 300C (572F). The people at Serious Eats have researched the problem at great length and with excellent results. Few home ovens reach 300C. I made this pizza last weekend using the recipe in the above link, my oven's top temperature is 274C (525F):

Pan Pizza

Serious Eats has a lot of pizza recipes for the kind of oven most of us have. A lot of those recipes, like New York Pizza, take advantage of a pizza stone.

For my pizza, I used a 12 inch cast iron skillet which worked very well, but it can be done in two 10 inch cake pans - or in just about anything else. Read the comments, all types of pan sizes and types are discussed. The dough is a no-knead recipe that rises vigorously overnight, then it does the second rise in the pan. It's easy to shape for the second rise, and it holds up to an extraordinary volume of toppings (which is a generally a desirable trait for Pan Pizza). It would have been nice to have been able to reach the recommended temperature of 288C (550F), but the site addresses that issue too. The pizza came out of the oven with the bottom crust a bit blond, but two minutes on a burner brought it to perfect. Be sure to check out the sauce recipes too. I used this one. It was the best Pan Pizza I have ever had.

Serious Eats has hundreds of pages of very good information specifically about making world class pizza without a pizza oven. It's a great site, check it out.

We are also lucky to have a lot of very knowledgeable people here on Seasoned Advice that can help with any specific problems.

You can make great pizza without a pizza oven.

Community
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Jolenealaska
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Thin pizzas are traditionally baked in extremely hot ovens for short times, thick pizzas need lower temperatures for much longer times.

Keep in mind that oven temperature is only one factor, as important if not more so is the quality of the ingredients and the techniques used in preparing them. A good base, good tomato sauce, and good toppings will make a good pizza even if the best you can get out of the oven is 375F, or 175C. Conversely poor ingredients will make poor pizza even if baked in the finest wood-fired oven.

Sure, a really hot oven will do some things for you but it's not the be-all and end-all of a good pizza.

GdD
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180°C are enough for everyone! At least with air circulation, without something around 200°C is okay, if you go higher the pizza will usually burn on the outside. Also it depends on how much fat is used.

Malik
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