Michigan Internet Marketing Club: Make Great Pizza at Home on Game Day

Make Great Pizza at Home on Game Day

Pizza deliveries rise by 35 percent on Super Bowl Sunday, with orders spiking when the score is close. But you can skip the tip and the trip to the door by making your own pizza at home in one of two affordable home pizza ovens from Consumer Reports tests. One, the Black & Decker 5-Minute Pizza Oven & Snack Maker, sits right on your counter. The other, the BakerStone Pizza Oven Box, fits neatly in your gas grill. Here’s the score.

Black & Decker 5-Minute Pizza Oven & Snack Maker

As the name suggests, the Black & Decker 5-Minute Pizza Oven, $150, claims to cook fresh or frozen pizza at home in a speedy five minutes. The elements are infrared and the oven heats to temperatures of 600°F or higher. In our tests, it took a few attempts to find the perfect temperature setting for the type of pizza we were cooking—frozen, fresh, or take-and-bake—but once we got it right, the pizza oven turned out pie after pie faster than a conventional oven. It only fits pizzas up to 12-inches wide so you’ll appreciate the quick turnover time when you’re making more than one.

The Snack Maker part of the oven may also come in handy on game day. In our tests, we tried fish sticks, chicken nuggets, and Hot Pockets. But when we put only a few pieces on the ceramic tray, the result was burned bottoms and undercooked interiors. The food cooked more evenly when we filled the tray with snacks, which is perfect when you’re cooking for a crowd.

BakerStone Pizza Oven Box

Super Bowl Sunday is one of the top grilling days of the year. If you’re grilling with gas, try the BakerStone Pizza Oven, $150, which sits on top of the grates. To bake pizza at home, a refractory stone cooking chamber traps hot air, cooking the pie from the top and bottom.

We placed the box on a four-burner gas grill and, after preheating it for 30 minutes, baked eight homemade 12-inch pizzas in quick succession. In four minutes, the box turned out pizza with crispy crusts and nicely cooked toppings. Bakerstone claims you can also cook bread, cookies, roasts, vegetables, and fish in the box. We didn’t try it because we were too busy eating the delicious pizza.

Gotta grill?
While it’s not exactly high grill-buying season, some stores have them on display in out-of-the-way aisles of the store. If you like the pizza box concept, look for a grill with three or more burners. Consider one of the large or mid-sized models from our full gas grill Ratings and recommendations.