The Narrow Kitchen: Cast Iron Pizza

Do you like pizza? Do you wish your home made pizza would turn out like pizza baked in a restaurant pizza oven? Then try out a cast iron pizza pan.

Using a Lodge griddle (or any other cast iron cookware), a pizza can be baked in two minutes, top and bottom.

Kevin Bingham, in his Narrow Kitchen, experiments with baking pizza on a cast iron pizza pan.

Note: This is my first real test with the Canon HV30. I definitely could have used an external mic and cameraman/director/assistant. (You work with what you've got.) And I learned the camera's workflow. More experimenting to follow...

Category:

Education

Tags:

• bake
• pizza
• cast
• iron
• narrow
• kitchen
• recipe
• canon
• hv30
• lodge

[Gordio283]

I already have a pizza stone. Is there an advantage of iron over a stone?

The stone not only has amazing heat retention (as does iron does) but the stone is also porous and draws moisture from the bread, which iron does not do.

[210482fmj]

its a pitty these cast iron pizza tray are anodised. shame they dont make non anodised ones

[binnsh]

i just made my first cast iron pizza before seeing your video. I'm a convert! The crust comes out crisp on the outside, yet moist and chewy on the inside. You get the iron griddle SCREAMING HOT on a high burner for 8 minutes, this will be way hotter than the oven could go. You can see the smoke when the dough first hits the pan. A few minutes under the broiler and it's done. I happened to have a Lodge 12" round griddle that works great. Try it!

[seka1986]

That looks pretty good.

[sibkiss2009]

thanks for the video. I don't have a cob oven or a pizza stone but I got a cast iron skillet and a cast iron dutch oven for camping one day.

I saw a video about pizza making today that said that a light coat of olive oil brushed on the crust before the toppings are added keeps them from soaking in to the crust and making it soggy.

[peppersnsmartpots]

Do you have a brick on the lower rack of your oven? Does it help at all with regulating temps by acting as a heat sink? I have the same crappy 17year old Kenmore range shown in you vid and if you believe the brick helps I may try it.

By the way, pizza looked great, and I have worked in pizza joints for over 14 years!

Pizza joints usually cook pizza at or above 550F degrees. I think that Lodge pizza pan would work great on a Weber charcoal grill with hardwood lump charcoal to reach 550+F.

[oddjob]

Interesting technicque but I would argue that you have way too many tomatoes on there (creating a soggy crust). Thanks for the vid though.

[Tithis]

It looks like the center of the bottom of the pizza is cooking a lot quicker then the sides, I'd imagine its because your burner is causing a hot spot in the center of the pan. You could probably get a more evenly cooked crust if you heated the pan in the oven.

[nuclearG1]

Part 2

The griddle seems to work as well as a stone - really crisp crust - easy to lift out of the oven without a peel - no cornmeal needed (that's the parchment's job), and no clean up.

The parchment paper says safe to 425 degrees, but I have cooked many pizzas at 500 degrees with no problem.

When done, the parchment slides right off the griddle onto a cutting board.

And best of all - the griddle can be used for other purposes and you don't need to move the stone in and out of the oven.

[nuclearG1]

I use the cast iron griddle (Lodge), but I put it on the second to the bottom rack in the oven and crank the oven to 500 degrees for about 20 minutes while I am preparing the pizza.

I build the pizza on parchment paper (on a cookie sheet or cutting board for transport).

I cut the parchment to the size of the griddle - trimming it into a circular shape. I lay the dough on the parchment - shape it to within 1" of the edge of the parchment and slide the parchment onto the grill for about 10 min.