How do you make good pizza in a home oven?

A domestic oven tops out well below a pizzeria's wood-fired one, and no amount of wishing changes that. What you can change is how you use the heat you have. Good home pizza is mostly about storing heat in something heavy, giving the dough a flying start, and not burying it under toppings.

Heat: everything at maximum

Set the oven to its hottest setting, with the fan on if it helps your oven get there (more on that in should you use the fan setting). Then leave it. An oven that says it is hot has only heated the air; the walls and whatever is on the shelf need much longer. We preheat for a good long while, until the stone or steel feels fiercely hot from a hand's distance.

Steel, stone or tray

The surface the pizza lands on matters more than anything else.

• Pizza steel: a thick sheet of steel. It stores and passes on heat very efficiently, giving the crispest, best-coloured base. Heavy and not cheap, but nearly indestructible.
• Pizza stone: ceramic or cordierite. Very good, a little gentler than steel. Never put a cold stone into a hot oven or splash it with water, or it may crack.
• Upturned heavy baking tray: the free option. Preheat it upside down and slide the pizza onto the flat underside. Better than a cold tray by a mile.
• Cast iron pan: makes a thicker, pan-style pizza with a crisp, almost fried bottom. A different style, and a very good one.

Put the shelf in the upper third of the oven, so the top of the pizza gets reflected heat from the ceiling too.

Dough and stretching

A dough left to rise slowly, ideally overnight in the fridge, tastes better and is easier to stretch; slow-rise pizza dough explains why. Take it out in good time so it warms up and relaxes.

Stretch by hand, not with a rolling pin, which squeezes out the bubbles. Press from the centre outwards with your fingertips, leaving a slightly thicker rim, then drape it over your knuckles and let gravity do the rest. Aim for thin in the middle. If it keeps springing back, cover it and let it rest a few minutes, then try again.

Build the pizza on a floured peel, an upturned tray or a sheet of baking paper so it slides off easily. Semolina on the peel works like little ball bearings.

Toppings: fewer than you think

In a home oven, less is more. Too much sauce or too many wet toppings make a soggy middle.

• Sauce: a thin layer of seasoned, uncooked passata or crushed tomatoes. The back of a spoon, spiral outwards, leave the rim bare.
• Cheese: torn mozzarella, drained first in a sieve so it doesn't flood the pizza. A low-moisture block melts with less water.
• Vegetables: thinly sliced, and precooked if watery, such as mushrooms or courgettes.
• Delicate things after baking: basil, rocket, burrata, a thread of raw olive oil.

Three toppings is plenty. Some of the best pizzas have two.

Baking: knowing when to stop

Slide the pizza onto the hot surface with a confident jerk. Watch it, don't wander off: in a properly hot oven things move quickly. It's ready when the rim is puffed with brown and slightly charred spots, the cheese is bubbling and the base is crisp when you lift an edge with a spatula.

If the base is done before the top, switch to the grill for a final moment to blister the cheese. If the top is done before the base, the surface wasn't hot enough: preheat longer next time.

Let it sit a moment before slicing, so the cheese settles.