review: Camp Chef Artisan Pizza Oven 90
Making fresh pizza is something that we’ve done as a family for many years. The kids love making it and we love rolling out the dough and personalizing the toppings.
Up til now, we either try grilling it or pumping our oven up to max heat and pre-heating our pizza stone for a long time. So far…. our most favorite ingredients have been from Fresh & Easy – the sauce, non-nitrite pepperoni, fresh dough have been unmatched to date. Any brand mozzarella is fine with us.
The downside of the kitchen oven despite the heavy ceramic pizza stone is that with each pizza made, less heat is retained and by the time poor Dad gets his ….. it’s not as bubbly on top as it could be and just isn’t as nice as the first two out of the oven. Takes too long to reheat the stone enough each time. In the BBQ the pizza stone stays hot pizza after pizza and works better than the inside kitchen oven – BUT you have to keep opening the BBQ lid to check the top of the pizza’s progress which keeps dumping the high heat needed. So the stone is hot enough consistently which is good for crust – but the top isn’t ever as bubbly and crispy. Nobody likes soggy, greasy pepperoni.
For an early Christmas present to us, hubby got an amazing deal on the Camp Chef Artisan Pizza Oven 90.
It’s designed after the wood fire pizza oven concept but without the wood. It still uses a ceramic pizza stone to promote an even heat that keeps your crust crisp outside but airy and light on the inside. The canopy top really distributes the heat to cook the top of the pizza extremely well. No heat loss with opening doors or lids anymore. It has adjustable heat and temperature gauge and works on a camp chef stove. He later bought a carry bag to protect it as well. We already owned an infrared cooking thermometer which they also sell – I tease hubby about this… but he swears it’s necessary to check the heat on the grill etc…. whatever. It is fun to use though. 😉 With this gadget he knew upon our Camp Chef test that there is a 10 % heat difference from front to back so he just rotates the pizza half way through.
The very best thing about this new artisan oven is that EVERY pizza is cooked perfectly and there is no need to wait to get the heat pumped back up, it’s just hot and ready to go the whole time. We love thin crust pizzas – and those are taking us only 5 mins of cooking time. We’re going to try making bread and focaccia in it too next. While we’re F&E fans – we will be making our own dough and sauce next time as well….
From Camp Chef – the oven in action ….
