The weather’s getting better, and we’re all cooking at home more. If you’ve got a garden you may have even dusted off the old barbecue already. But why mess around with a boring old dirty grill when you could get yourself the brand new backyard pizza oven you’ve always dreamt of?! Yes that’s right, if you’ve had your eye on the Gozney Roccbox over the last couple of years, then there’s really never been a better time to buy one.
One of the key reasons that pizza will never be as good if cooked in a home oven is that you just can’t get it hot enough – pro pizza shops will cook their pizzas super fast in temperatures of 450 C. The Gozney Roccbox is basically a tiny version of the company’s large scale professional ovens that you’ll find in places like Yard Sale Pizza and Pizza Pilgrims. The little box is a genius invention, and once you’ve mastered it, you can be cooking restaurant-grade pizza in your back yard.
It’s important to say “once you’ve mastered it” as our first attempt was nothing short of a hilarious disaster. Like a kid trying to build a complicated lego set without reading the instructions properly, we ended up with a series of undercooked sloppy messes which we affectionately named “pizza fondue”.
To be fair, getting the Roccbox itself up and running is a breeze. You just unfold the legs, screw in the gas connector and then attach it to a gas canister (you’ll have to go and purchase one of these). You then just fire it up and leave it for half and hour to get it blazing hot – the built in thermometer will tell you when you hit the magic 450. There is a wood burning attachment too, but we haven’t used this one yet as we suspect that will be a little trickier.
Making dough and getting it stretched out properly is a lot harder than you might think, so we’d definitely recommend taking some time to watch the many very helpful videos that Gozney have produced before diving in. They cover all different styles of dough and cooking tips, but if you’re a novice you should definitely start with their simple dough recipe, which you can find here. When you’ve nailed the dough, you can cook yourself a beautiful pizza in the oven in about 90 seconds, thanks to the stone base and high heat retention in the oven.
Once you’ve cracked it, the possibilities are endless, and one of our favourite things about the Roccbox is that you can use it to cook other things. We filled a roasting tray with tomatoes, thyme, anchovies, and olive oil and whacked it in for five minutes and it came out a treat. You can also cook fish and meat, other types of bread, and nearly anything else you can think of.
The Roccbox comes in at £399 so it is a bit of an investment, but if you’re regularly spending £12+ on pizza takeaways, it’ll pay for itself in no time. Plus, what could be more satisfying than making your own pizza from scratch and topping it with whatever ingredients you want!? Gozney are still delivering super fast from their HQ in Christchurch, so if you want to take the plunge, you’ll be cooking up pizzas like a pro in no time.
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