Mumbler Reviews: The Roccbox Portable Pizza Oven

Thanks to Mr Mumbler for this guest review of the fabulous Roccbox Pizza Oven.

Let’s get one thing out of the way. The Roccbox is not cheap. At £500 it is a significant investment, and if you are not a massive fan of pizza, clearly not worth it.

I am a massive fan of pizza.

Before buying the Roccbox, we had often made homemade pizza, usually cooking it on a Pizza Stone with the oven set to maximum. This led to pizzas that were OK, but no better. The base was never crisp the whole way to the end, at least not without burning the crust. The issue is heat – to get a really great, bubbly crust, the pizza needs to be cooked at very hot temperatures. Our oven will only hit around 280c, and the large area is not efficient for cooking pizza.

So for the past few months, I’ve been thinking about an alternative.

This search led me to this brilliant video guide, from Serious Eats. The guide was pretty clear that the Uuni 3 and the Roccbox were the best options over here in the UK. Having had a good look online, it seemed that the Roccbox – whilst more expensive – was probably the best option.

When it arrived, the oven came with everything needed to get going, including a pizza peel. I just needed to plug it into a gas cylinder (it does also work with wood), and get started!

Having made some dough from a recipe on the Roccbox website, I waited – rather impatiently – for it to get up to the right heat. After about 20 minutes, the temperature gauge showed 450c (!), and it was ready to go.

Using the peel, I put the first pizza in, and waited. Not long mind you, beacause after around 30 seconds, the pizza was puffing up on the side closest to the flame. Taking it out and rotating the pizza was really simple, and another 30 seconds or so was all it took for the process to be complete.

The real test – how did it taste? Amazing! The crust was puffy, the base was crisp, and the toppings perfectly cooked. The girls both liked the results too, meaning that it will be seeing a lot of use!

The only downside is that the actual pizza cooking part is really not an activity to share with your little chefs – the intense heat means that a misplaced hand when putting the pizza in could lead to a burn. I am confident letting the children use a knife or the hob in a well supervised kitchen, but felt that the Roccbox was just bit too tricky. However, they have so far enjoyed the very important chef duties of making the dough, the pizza sauce and adding toppings to their own pizzas. (A great way for you to sneak in some new flavours for them to try!)

Overall, I highly recommend the Roccbox – great pizza, quicker and fresher than a takeaway! It’s even portable enough that you can pop it in an Ikea bag and take it to the park, the beach or a friend’s house.