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I am not a chef. Far from it. I can barely boil an egg. But having seen endless posts about homemade pizzas, cooked in aesthetically pleasing garden pizza ovens… well let’s just say I was influenced into saying yes to trying one. “It needs to be easy,” I said when deciding which one to try, “Idiot proof”. The Tread is your guy, the experts at Gozney told me. And so as the story goes, later that week a Gozney Tread Pizza Oven landed on my doorstep. And not just any Gozney Tread Pizza Oven – the limited edition Matty Matheson (you’ll know him from Netflix’s The Bear) one, a bright orange look-at-me Gozney Tread Pizza Oven.
At £549.99 it’s admittedly expensive. But so is eating out. And swapping restaurant pizza treats for at-home bakes will work out cheaper in the long run, especially if you hit the dough balls as much as we do. Still, what have I done, I thought to myself as I unboxed it and set it up in the garden. But to be honest, that’s where my trepidation ended. Setting the thing up was surprisingly easy – I didn’t even need a table as it came with a nice tall tripod to sit on, although I did have to take a quick trip to B&Q to buy some gas for it.
Yes, gas. While some pizza ovens are wood fired, and some are combi wood and gas fired, the Tread is gas only. It’s marketed as the most portable pizza oven in the world, and even comes with a car fitting, meaning you can make pizzas while you wild camp, picnic, or hit significant traffic on the M60.
I however chose my first run to be in my back garden, on my daughter Poppy’s first birthday. Despite being 365 days old, she’s already a food snob, so the pressure was on.
I’ll admit this now – I cheated my way to the dough, buying it in Tesco. Flouring the kitchen counter, I stretched it out little by little (this is quite tricky) until it was thin enough. I then smeared tomato pizza sauce onto it, scattered over some mozzarella chunks, and added anchovies and black olives. Taking the delivery paddle, I then swooped up my pizza and shimmyed it into the oven, which had been heating up to 500 degrees for the last 30 minutes.
I then took a small metal paddle and, after around a minute, when the pizza was beginning to bubble and crisp nicely, I turned it around to ensure all sides were the same. Once I was satisfied, I whipped it out with the delivery paddle, flicked it onto a plate, and (once cooled down) presented it to the birthday girl. She picked it up with her tiny chubby fingers and began to munch it happily. As did my five year old, Molly, and my partner John, who was momentarily speechless from watching me transform into some kind of Italian chef before his eyes.
Considering it was my first try, it wasn’t bad at all. And let’s be honest, I can’t take all the credit – most of it has to go to the oven. If you’re after an easy-to-use, genuinely idiot proof pizza oven to impress your own one year old… well, the Gozney Tread is for you.
