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.
Quick answer: A ”pizza setting” means different things in different ovens – usually a combination of bottom heat and fan, tuned for a pizza stone. Compared with ordinary top and bottom heat, the results vary more between ovens and brands than you might think.
What the setting actually does
Most pizza settings combine base or bottom heat with fan circulation to give a hot, even floor temperature while the air circulates around the toppings. In some ovens that gives a clearly better base. In others, ordinary top and bottom heat combined with the grill element for the last minute (see grill setting in a home oven) gives a better result, because the pizza setting prioritises evenness over raw heat.
Try it yourself
Bake the same dough with the same toppings once on the pizza setting and once on classic top and bottom heat with a grill finish, then compare the colour underneath and on top. See the full basic protocol in pizza in a home oven, and the baking table in baking temperature.
