Home Baking
Your oven stops at 250 °C. Here are the methods, temperatures and dough tweaks that still give you a puffy crust and a well-baked base at home.
11 guides in this hub
Most of us bake pizza in an ordinary kitchen oven that stops at around 250 °C (480 °F), roughly half of what a Neapolitan wood-fired oven runs at. That changes how the dough should be made and how the pizza should be baked. You will not get a true Neapolitan pizza out of it – but you can get surprisingly close, and you certainly don’t have to settle for a pale, bready result.
This section is about getting the most out of the oven you already have: pizza in a home oven step by step, whether a baking steel or a stone is the better buy, and how to adjust the dough for 250 °C. Baking for the very first time? Start with your first pizza.
Guides on this topic
Start here · 3 min
Baking multiple pizzas in a row – keeping the floor hot
The floor temperature drops with every pizza. How much recovery time to give the steel or stone, and how to order your bakes for a whole evening.
Read the guide
Baking steel vs pizza stone – which one should you buy
4 min
Pizza on a baking sheet – the best result without special kit
4 min
Preheating time for a pizza stone – how to avoid cracking it
3 min
Preheating time for a baking steel – how long it really takes
4 min
The grill element – when it helps and when it burns the cheese
4 min
More to read
Guide · 2 min
Dough for 250 °C – the adjustments that rescue a home oven
A Neapolitan dough baked at 250 °C dries out if you change nothing. Lower the hydration, adjust the ball weight and learn why it works in a home oven.
Guide · 2 min
Your first pizza – seven steps from flour to plate
Never baked pizza before? Start here. Seven steps, a shopping list and a timeline that works even in a completely ordinary home oven. No guesswork involved.
Guide · 1 min
The pizza setting on your oven – what does it actually do?
The pizza setting does different things in different ovens. Sometimes it helps, sometimes plain top and bottom heat works better. How to check your own oven.
Guide · 2 min
Pizza stone – cordierite, ceramic or slate
Which pizza stone material copes with 300 °C, how to preheat without cracking it and when a baking steel is the better buy. Materials and care explained.
Guide · 2 min
Baking steel – thickness, placement and care
6, 8 or 10 mm? Thickness controls heat-up time and recovery between pizzas. How to choose, where to put the steel in the oven and how to keep it rust-free.