Review: Presto Pizzazz Plus Rotating Pizza Oven

Among the enduring food trends of the past decade, two stand out in my mind. One is craft beer. In American history, beer was first local, then regional, then dominated by large national brands. The big beermakers like Miller, Pabst, and Budweiser crowded out the regional brands; iconic beers disappeared (Schmidt's, Ballantine, Piels) or were bought up by the big breweries and rendered into bland brews (Rolling Rock, Lone Star, Olympia, Schaefer). 

Beer was in a sad state, and the best stuff you could get was green-bottle imports like Heineken and Molson. The craft beer explosion changed all that beginning in 1979 when Jimmy Carter deregulated the beer market, and it's been a beer drinker's renaissance as the trend accelerated in this century.

Presto Pizzazz Plus Rotating Pizza Oven

There's a good parallel track for pizza in America. Beginning with Shakey's (1954) and Pizza Hut (1958), national chains began to compete with the mom and pop pizzamakers. While they couldn't match the taste, their efficiency allowed them to compete on price. The overall effect was that more pizza was available to more people (not just in Italian-American neighborhoods) and at a lower price. But not only was it bland generic pizza, it degraded the quality of the surviving mom and pop joints, who often turned to mass suppliers like Sysco to trim costs. 

But the artisanal pizza movement has exploded in the nine short years that I've been writing this blog, and in almost any town in America you can get a legit Neapolitan pizza to go with your craft beer.

Beyond the ubiquitous Neapolitans coming out of 900 degree dome ovens, You can get wonderful Detroit style pizza at Via 313 in Austin, New Haven style at Basic in San Diego, and "al taglio" Roman style at Rione in Philly.

Beginning to bake my 12" pizza

Beyond the commercial efforts, the artisanal pizza movement has sparked a wave of "make it a home" enthusiasts. I've embraced some basic methods to get around the limitations of a 500-degree home oven, such as using a Baking Steel. Built-in backyard pizza ovens are growing in popularity, but there are also some simpler options for those not so fully committed; that brings us to pizza ovens for home use.

Nearly done

There are "portable" outdoor pizza ovens like the Ooni Fyra, a $250 wood-pellet fueled oven that reaches 900 degrees. You can spend $1,000 on the Breville Pizzaiolo for a countertop pizza oven, and there are plenty of oven boxes that can be heated using your conventional backyard gas grill. At the budget end of the pizza oven spectrum, for $50 you can get the Presto Pizzazz Plus Rotating Pizza Oven. We got one as a Christmas gift and I was eager to try it out. 

The Pizzazz is a Jetsons-like device in its form, a rounded triangle slotted body that incorporates heating elements to cook the pizza from both the bottom and the top. The heating triangle covers only a small "slice" of your pizza at any given time, but the slowly rotating cooking tray assures that your pizza will cook evenly. The tray is dimpled and has a nonstick coating.

Golden underneath

One immediate advantage is that, compared to my regular method of cooking homemade pizzas on a Baking Steel at 500-550 degrees, there is no preheating time lag. A second, more valuable advantage is that you don't incur the risk of mishandling the pizza when transferring from peel to oven. You can assemble your pie directly on the cold rotating tray, then put the tray in the oven to cook.

Cornicione was pale and tender

For my first attempt, I made a batch of pizza dough for which the recipe specified just one hour of rise time. The batch was big enough for two 12" pizzas, so I put half in the refrigerator for another time. The tray is a little bigger than 13", so it was ideal for the almost-round 12" crust that I fashioned. I used jarred Marinara sauce (Rao's), raw chunks of fresh mild sausage, and a mix of Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano shaved cheeses.

Pesto pizza, pre-bake

The spindle on which you seat the tray begins to rotate as soon as you plug in the oven, and it's a little hairy to get the tray perched properly on the spindle; even then, it seems wobbly but that did not affect performance. To begin cooking, you rotate the heating control like a timer to set the desired cooking time; there is no temperature control. The feature that transforms this budget machine is a selector switch that allows you to cook from the bottom, the top, or in dual mode.

Perfectly cooked, top and bottom

I cooked this pizza for about 12 minutes in dual mode, and the top appeared well-cooked, including the sausage. But a peek underneath revealed a still-pale crust, so I gave it an extra 4 minutes cooking from the bottom only. This is how you can easily fine-tune your results. Unlike a conventional oven or any enclosed oven, the pizza is right in your field of view, and you can top-cook only for extra crisping or bottom-cook only to firm up a pale crust.

Brilliant sesame studded undercarriage

This first pizza was a hit, taste-wise. The top was perfectly browned, and the crust was properly rigid. No wet spots, no soggy tip, no sag. However, the crust was curiously delicate, especially toward the cornicione. I like an al-dente chewy/crunchy cornicione, but this was pale, tender, and delicate. Still good, but not ideal. I wondered if I could correct that.

About 4 days later, I took out the second half of the dough which had been resting in the fridge, and let it rise for a few hours at room temp. I decided that the pizza might cook differently if I split it into two smaller 7-8" pizzas. Those pies became medium ovals as I rolled the dough pretty thin. 

The mini Margherita

I did prepare the dough off the tray, adding flour for handling and putting sesame seeds on the underside of the first mini-pizza (a trick I learned from Rize Pizza in West Chester, PA.) I secured the seeds to the underside with olive oil cooking spray, then I assembled the toppings after the dough was on the tray.

Much better than the original attempt

Mini-pie #1 started with homemade pesto in place of tomato sauce, topped with garden cherry tomatoes and the same sausage and cheese mix used on the previous pizza. I didn't center the pizza on the tray very well, and the tray listed to one side as it rotated, but that did not affect results. Because of the moisture load delivered by the cherry tomatoes, this pie got about 15 minutes of dual cooking. 

Tortilla "pizza"

The results were spectacular! This crust was so much better than the previous one made from the same dough. It had all the flavor, plus good hole structure, plus a crispy snap, plus a great chewiness. It will take more experiments to know if the difference was due to more rise time (likely), the underside oil and sesame seeds (maybe), or the smaller size of the pizza (possibly).

Good hole structure on mini Margherita

Mini-pie #2 followed in similar fashion, but without seeds underneath; it was essentially the personal-size version of the original pizza. It was excellent, much better than the original pie, but not quite as magical as mini-pie #1. 

Best all-around flour I've found

Between these two pizza events, I used some flour tortillas to make a pizza-ish lunch, topping the tortillas with the same Rao's Marinara, then adding diced leftover prime rib and some white American cheese. It's not pizza, but it was good. And once again, the dual control proved to be a key feature to getting the top cooked without burning the thin tortilla.

The original Pizzazz oven was targeted for heating up frozen pizzas; if you were making your own pizza, it was imperative to cover the entire tray surface. This newer "Plus" model allows you to cook smaller pizzas, things like pizza rolls or chicken wings, and other frozen convenience foods. The instructions warn you that you shouldn't use it to cook raw meats, but it cooked the sausage on my pizzas perfectly.

I was excited to get the Pizzazz Plus as a gift, and it has exceeded my expectations. It does take 15 minutes to cook a pizza, but the overall time is shorter than using an oven because you don't need to pre-heat. If you are making a lot of pizzas (at a party, for example), you could go much faster with a $150 grill insert device or the $250 Ooni wood-pellet outdoor oven. But for a mere $50, this is a superb performer. Given its exposed heating elements, I don't recommend it if you have small kids who might want to participate, but otherwise this is a fairly versatile device that is worth the cabinet space and the tiny price tag.