Last time we worked with pizza, we just made a simple pizza.  Let’s add a bit of specialized gear and make this a bit better.

This time, you’ll need a pizza stone.  They mostly vary by size and shape.  You can get round or rectangular ones.  I started with a round one and recently upgraded to a stone that takes up most of a shelf so I can make larger pizzas.  I’d say to start with a round one and see how it works for you.  The good thing about a pizza stone is you can just leave it in there all the time.  Stones like this are great at storing heat and letting it out.  Ovens generally cycle temperatures up and down by a large amount.  By leaving a stone in there, it radiates heat when the temperature drops, and soaks up heat when the temperature rises.  On top of that, you have a lot of heat concentrated right under the crust, so it goes right into the pizza and helps it cook quickly and evenly.  Don’t bother washing it between uses, just leave it in there.  Like cast iron cookware, it gets better as you use it more.

So now you need a way of getting the pizza in and out.  There’s two ways to handle this.  You can either continue to use a cookie sheet or you can further invest in a pizza peel (the paddles you see at your local pizza place).  Using a peel lets you crank the heat even higher since you won’t use the cookie sheet anymore, but peels can have a bit of a steep learning curve.  Dough is prone to stick to it, and you have to have the right flick of the wrist to get the dough successfully off the peel and on to the stone.  So stick with the sheet and leave everything else the same: 450F oven (preheat for 45 minutes), dough, mozzarella, sauce, and toppings.  Put it in for 10 minutes and see if you can tell the difference.