Pizza in a Wonder Oven


equipment and supplies, Wonder Oven Cooking

I’ve been dreaming lately of how to make pizza in my Wonder Oven.  After testing it out, the process I came up with worked and I’ve learned a few lessons I can’t wait to share with you!

 

Why in the Wonder Oven

I’ve made pizza in a Sun Oven (see this post). However, in thinking about it, I wanted a Wonder Oven option too since my Sun Oven will likely be in high demand.  Another conflict may be that the weather might not always cooperate.  Pizza is such a “kitchen sink” yet “comfort” type of food.  Almost anything can go on it (within reason) and it scores high familiarity points.  With something like this, I wanted another way to make it if my Sun Oven wasn’t available and “ta-da” (!!) this is the post that’ll teach you how to do it.

Butane Stove “Ah hah”

In order to cook with a Wonder Oven, a heated pan (with food) is needed.  The Wonder Oven acts as an insulator, allowing a “slow cook” to occur.  For all my experience, I’ve never once had issues with a hot pot or pan nesting in the Wonder Oven pillows and causing a scorching or melting problem.  Well, this time around, I decided to practice even further by using my butane stove as I cooked.  The lesson I learned was HUGE.  The flame was much more direct to the pan and before I knew it, as I nested my pans in the pillows, my pillow was scorched and I could smell that the polystyrene beads had melted.  Eeeek!!  I investigated to discover what happened inside my pillows and I’ll share the details with you below. From now on I’ll advise laying down a towel so there’s a layer of protection.

Polystyrene Beads Melting Temperature 

Many times in the classes I’ve taught, I’ve had people ask me if I’ve ever had issues with the polystyrene beads melting in my cooking.  I never have until now.  This caused me to look up the melting temperature of polystyrene, which I discovered was 410-480 °F.  Likewise, the fabric is always 100% cotton.  In researching this, I found out cotton scorches at 410 degrees.  To avoid ever having problems, one idea might be to use an infrared thermometer to check the temperature of your pan.  As you’ll see, I ended up losing more than two gallons of beads inside my pillows from this mistake.  For me, it’s no problem to replace the beads right away.  I always have beads available to me because I’m still selling Wonder Ovens in my shop .  This was a great lesson to have happen to me, for your benefit of learning from it!

 

Now, let’s get to it!  I’m starting with one pound of pizza dough and I’ll be making two pizzas with it.

 

The Process

 

On a floured surface, roll out half of the pizza dough to the same diameter as the available pan.

In a well oiled pan, on medium to low flame, allow the dough to cook until it starts raising up.

Turn the dough over and cook on the other side.

Once cooked (lightly browned), remove the dough to a plate to add toppings while the pan itself – along with the lid – stay on the stove to heat.  Remember, in Wonder Oven cooking, the pan as well as the lid need to be hot in order to achieve the baking effect once nested in the pillows.

Before leaving the pan on the stove to heat, I got rid of any excess oil but I didn’t wipe it out.  (From now on, I’ll wipe it out because it started smoking.)

 

Replace the topped pizza to the pan and quickly move it into the Wonder Oven.

Important lesson:  remember here to place an old towel down (under the pan) to protect the Wonder Oven pillows from scorching and melting the polystyrene beads.

 

 

Now to make pizza number two.  Same process.

Flip the dough to cook on the other side.

This time I was careful to wipe out all of the extra oil before heating the pan (with the lid) on the stove.

Topping the pizza while the pan heated up.

PS- I loved using this ginormous pancake spatula we have for the job of replacing the pizza to the pan.

Ready to bake!

And into the Wonder Oven it goes (stacking style).  Here I have One large pillow and two small Wonder Oven pillows.  If you only have one Wonder Oven set, my “guess” is that you could wrap this second pan in 3-4 towels (nesting it in the top pillow) and get the same effect.  I’d try that if you just have one set to work with.

(Btw – It was at this point that I could smell the beads melting and the fabric becoming scorched.  So sad!  I was a little bit concerned that the pizza itself would burn as well, but as you’ll see, it was fine.)

 

Two hours later….

Top layer pizza

Bottom layer pizza

Both the top and the bottom pizzas were hot, cheese melted and cooked completely.

 

I’m so excited to have a way to make pizza in my Wonder Oven!  The pizza itself turned out great (the purpose of this experiment).

 

Now about the pillows….

 

The forms you see from the nesting was where the beads actually melted.  Like I said, I’ve never had anything like this happen before while cooking on my conventional stovetop.  That said, I’m so happy this happened now so I could learn this lesson and pass it on to you.  Watch those more direct flames!  And remember, from now on, I’ll be laying down a towel to protect my pillows.

  

In handling the pillows afterward, there were “crunchy” parts inside of them.   I rubbed the pillows as much as I could to “de-form” them.  This is the most burnt area after I worked with it for a bit.

 

I was curious what had happened on the inside, so I cut open this pillow to take a peek.  You can see that the beads melted into tiny plastic-like beads.

Next, I measured my pillows to assess the damage (in seeing how much volume I’d lost).  As far as volume of beads, this one mistake cost me a gallon and a half of beads (out of four gallons) in this blue pillow.  This was exclusively – from what I could see – in the area where the pillow was scorched (so right where I laid it down to nest).

As for the green pillow – which didn’t scorch, but did have some melting happen – I lost 3/4 of a gallon of beads (out of six gallons, because it’s a large sized pillow).

My pillows are okay again now, but I’d hate for this to ever happen to someone else!  Watch out for those extremely hot temperatures.

 

 

 

 

 

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