For a lot of home cooks, decent handmade pizza is the holy grail. It’s a lot trickier than it sounds to actually get it). (There are people around who have gone to all kinds of lengths to get the correct taste, from ordering flour specially from Italy to modifying their electric ovens to cook at the temperatures you can expect out of a traditional wood-fired oven. The truth is, however, that you don’t need to do all that much to have delicious pizza at home. Just remember a few things, and make sure that you are using a high quality cooking method. After all, at 300 degrees, you may never get a great crust.

To avoid soft, “bready” crusts, try to stick with a high gluten flour, and let it rise sufficiently. Because of how they’re put together, quick crusts, mixes that include yeast but no baking powder, and pizza crust in a can are all likely to produce a ho-hum result. If you don’t use a fairly strong flour, and give the yeast time to work, you are going to get some fairly bad pizza. If you want a great pie, don’t take shortcuts.

Generally, too, avoid low-quality ingredients. The flavor will be noticable, even if you do get a bargain on low-cost cheeses and sauces. Many low cost cheeses will not melt quite correctly, and low quality sauces may taste too sweet, or include too many fillers. You probably already know how to tell a great pizza. If things don’t seem quite right, it could be the quality of your ingredients that is the problem. No pizza can be better than what you put into it, after all.

Use the appropriate recipe, and think about what you are attempting to make. There are all kinds of pizzas available, from thin New York style pizza to crispy, cracker-like Neapolitan, heavy Chicago deep-dish, and many more. If you are using a recipe intended to make one sort, but you are attempting to produce another, you are not going to end up with anything great. Take into consideration what you love in a pizza, before you start cooking. Time and time again, it will help you end up with delicious pies.

Bake the pizza correctly, last, but not least. Never use a low temperature oven to make anything but a pre-baked freezer pizza, and don’t expect that to be a good one. Pizza gets its characteristic texture and taste from high baking temperatures. Does that mean you have to rig your oven to bake at 900 degrees? No! Purchase a Presto Pizza Cooker that’ll produce the ideal temperature and texture each and every time, or use the top setting on your oven (ideally a wood or gas oven). These devices may take up a bit of space, but they’re consistent in making great tasting pizza, and can result in great pizza in half the time.

It may take some work to make good pizza at home, but you don’t have to go overboard. You’ll never be stuck with lousy homemade pizza again. Just get the correct ingredients, a good recipe, and use the appropriate baking method!