The Best Way To Take Advantage Of Your Pizza Oven While It Cools Down

Backyard pizza ovens are in fashion in recent years, part of the backyard foodie trend with home chefs reaching for the Michelin stars to varying results. Whether you think home pizza ovens are worth the hype or not, they certainly can make really great pies — super fast and super hot, just like in your favorite slice shop or carry-out spot. But as with your grill, they can take quite a bit of time to cool down. Thankfully, with this trick, you can double-dip on that heat to bring a whole other course to the table. Simply use your pizza oven to make a dessert while it cools down. It's one of many unexpected uses for your pizza oven.

Home pizza ovens reach over 800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is perfect for getting a great bubbly, crispy crust on your pizza, but is just too high for desserts. However, as your pizza oven cools down, it will fall to the desired temperature for baking most desserts (between 300 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit) and hold within the range long enough to cook a number of tasty treats. While it may not be long enough to prepare thick and dense items, like regular-sized pies and cakes, it's perfect for cookies, crumbles, and dessert pizzas. You only need your trusty cast iron skillet to get your desserts to come out perfectly cooked, hot, and delicious, with a little added smoky flavor. Don't let that heat go to waste. Just follow these tips for cool-down dessert success.

A cast iron skillet is the best tool for this pizza oven trick because, while cast iron may have hot and cold spots on the stove, it will heat evenly in the oven. Plus, a properly treated cast iron skillet is naturally non-stick. You can even put it in the oven a few minutes before the oven drops to your desired heat range to make sure it's good and hot.

As far as sweet treats go, cookies are a perfect choice because they bake quickly and you can fit more than a few in a large cast iron skillet. Depending on your cookie recipe, the radiant heat will make them crispy on the outside and soft and gooey in the center. Just be careful when cooking thin and crispy cookies because they may come out a bit crispier than you're used to. Oven-baked s'mores are another great option and cook in just about five minutes, but you can cut that time down even more when you use marshmallow cream in your baked s'mores.

For a super tasty dessert pizza, you'll probably want to parcook your crust ahead of time or the dough won't cook properly at the lower temperature. While this method may not be ideal for whole pies, it's great for reheating pie by the slice and melting extra ingredients on top. You can even make crisps and crumbles in miniature cast iron pans, so long as they'll cook in around 10 minutes or so. But whatever you decide to go with, it's still a pizza oven and likely to be hotter towards the back, so keep an eye out and turn your dessert occasionally — just as you would a pizza.