Dubbed New York City’s most iconic dessert, we put a seasonal twist on the traditional braided babka sweet bread using our super-easy pizza dough recipe. Twist up our Classic Pizza Dough for a whole new take on pumpkin pie this holiday season. Baked in our cast iron skillet, this showstopping sweet, spiced bread is perfect for kicking off your Thanksgiving and winter festivities!

Use a sourdough starter to bake classic bagels with ‘everything’ seasoning in your Ooni pizza oven, complete with a salty, garlicky crust topped with crunchy poppy and sesame seeds. This recipe is by sourdough expert and Ooni’s Head of Engineering & Technology, Mike Vaona!

The secret behind great sourdough? Using a starter, aka mother, to ferment the dough rather than ready-made yeast from a packet. Making a sourdough starter isn’t inherently difficult (all you need is flour, water and time) but prepping your own will take some commitment. The mixture needs a few days to develop yeast and bacteria, become sour and produce those signature frothy bubbles. 

If you’re not familiar with the process or don’t think you’ve got the skills to proof and feed a starter, don’t worry. Bryan Ford (@artisanbryan), author of “New World Sourdough,” has an endless supply of knowledge and tips for novices and pros alike. He’s shared this delicious recipe for creating the ultimate sourdough pizza dough, from starter to finish. 

A little effort here goes a long way, leading to a greater depth of flavour, aroma and strength for your dough. Use this method to make anything from baguettes and bagels to pretzels and, but of course,–pizza. 

Bryan’s first slice of advice? Keep your starter in a jar on your kitchen countertop, covered with a lid or a cloth with an elastic band wrapped around the opening. If you plan to use your starter regularly, it’s best to feed it with water and flour every 1 to 2 days to keep it alive. 

For feeding, add equal parts flour (the same flour your starter used; in this recipe’s case, a combination of “00” and whole grain) and water to the starter and mix until fully blended. The starter will grow every time you do this, so remove a little bit of the starter each time before adding the fresh flour and water.

If you need to leave your starter at home for a while, or can’t feed it for a period of time, seal it and place it in the fridge for up to 2 weeks (the cold temperature will cause the starter to go dormant, so it doesn’t need to be fed). When you’re ready to use it again, simply remove it from the fridge and continue feeding it every 1 to 2 days.

Naples may be the home of the first ever pizza, but there’s another Italian city that’s a destination for truly great, original pizza – Rome. Throughout the city, you’ll find a classic local pizza style that features a crust that’s thicker than a Neapolitan, but much thinner than a deep-dish, with a dough that’s almost like a flat focaccia. 

Simple, yet packed with flavour, this tasty pizza is sold by the slice in bakeries across Rome as either pizza bianca (white pizza) or pizza rossa (red pizza), topped respectively with high quality extra virgin olive oil and salt, or tomato sauce. 

To get the base nice and crispy, our version is cooked at a low temperature for a longer period of time, resulting in an irresistible crunch. Designed to cook in your Ooni oven, our recipe brings the classic pizza bianca straight to your home. And while you may not be in the streets of Rome, we’re pretty sure these flavours will make you feel like you are. 

You’ve mastered making pizza in your pizza oven, now it’s time to nail baking bread! Bona fide baker and one of our Pizza Taste Testers, Mike Vaona, created this recipe for a cast-iron bread recipe. Use Ooni’s Casserole Dish and Sizzler Pan combo to cook your favourite bread recipe. Here, Mike gives you the option to cook your loaf using a method for sourdough or a dough made with dried yeast.

Looking for a simple, delicious bread to pair with all sorts of dips and dinners? This versatile flatbread uses our Classic Pizza Dough recipe, finished with plenty of herb-packed butter. We love it served alongside our Cheesy Baked Artichoke Dip.

Pizza in New York City is as diverse as its residents, and it’s hard to argue any of the myriad styles found in the city are more iconic than the classic New York-style pizza. With its large and sturdy base topped with tomato sauce, plenty of shredded mozzarella, and often purchased by the slice, it hits the spot any time of the year. 

The history of pizza in NYC is rich and extensive: Founding cornerstones include Lombardi’s, found north of Little Italy, Totonno's in Coney Island, John's of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, and Patsy's in East Harlem. Traditionally, New York pizzerias cooked their pies in coal ovens. Eventually, gas ovens became dominant, which paved the way for the proliferation of the slice shops for which New York is famous today.

Traditional Italian styles of pizza (like Neapolitan pizza) often rely on the aggressive heat and flame found in a coal or wood-fired oven and are baked at 450 to 510 °C. New York pizza-makers adapted these recipes to cook more consistent pizzas at lower temperatures, ranging from 260 to 340 °C. Note: Our ovens are much smaller than a restaurant’s, so we’ll need slightly hotter temperatures. And while this style requires a bit longer to bake (about 5 minutes), it’s totally worth it. 

Our recipe is a nod to today’s classic New York cheese pizza, using bread flour enriched with olive oil and sugar, cold-proofed overnight, and baked low and slow. The crust is thicker than a Neapolitan but thinner than a pan pizza, with a crust that’s about 2 millimetres (.2 centimetres) thick and up to 20 inches (50 centimetres) wide. While we can't get that big in an Ooni, you can definitely achieve a 14 to 16-inch (36 to 40-centimetre) New York-style pizza. 

The sauce requires no cooking, is thick and rich, and only requires crushed tomatoes, fine sea salt, and dried oregano. Less moisture in the sauce helps retain a sturdy crust, and the simple yet robust flavour balances the generous serving of low-moisture mozzarella. 

Add to that some pepperoni (a classic New York topping), and you’ll have the delicious, crusty, slightly chewy and cheesy taste of the Big Apple from the comfort of your home. 

You’ve mastered making pizza in your Ooni Pro, now it’s time to nail baking bread! Bona fide, professional baker and one of our Pizza Taste Testers, Bryan Ford, created this recipe for a Wood-fired Bread Loaf. Using a mixture of whole wheat flour, bread flour and all purpose flour creates a depth of flavour and a rustic texture along with a generous, golden brown crust, infused with natural flavours from the wood-burning fire.

With its distinctive brick shape, thick, fluffy base, crispy crust and stunning cheesy edges – aka the “frico” or the caramelised cheese crown – Detroit-style pizza is distinctive in look and flavour. Since its invention sometime in the 1940s, it’s become one of the most popular pizza styles around. In 1946, Buddy’s Rendezvous, a bar owned by Gus Guerra, was struggling to make money. Gus decided to add new items to his menu and just happened to have a few unused blue steel industrial utility trays, which he thought would make a good Sicilian-style pizza. The trays helped the dough keep its soft and airy crust while also allowing the exterior to be soaked through with oil. Who exactly came up with the dough recipe is under debate (maybe Guerra’s wife, Anna, or an “old Sicilian dude named Dominic”) but what’s fact is that its roots are, indeed, Sicilian. 

On top of the dough, Gus often included pepperoni, followed by a generous portion of brick cheese from Wisconsin all the way to the edges of the pan, followed by more toppings, and the final touch: streaks of red sauce, honouring the history of the automotive roots of the Motor City. 

Soft on the inside and crunchy on the surface, in our version, we use mozzarella, cheddar and lots of pepperoni for a hit of salt and spice. Comforting, filling and highly addictive, this nod to the original Detroit-style pizza is hard to beat. 

Everyone knows and loves banana bread, but this recipe studs the batter with choc chips and bakes it in our cast iron skillet for a sweet, caramelised crust and a soft, chewy inside – you’ll never bake it in a conventional oven again!

What makes bread even better? Cheese! Pro baker and Pizza Taste Tester Bryan Ford’s recipe uses plenty of grated Parmesan along with delicate zucchini strips to pack this pillowy focaccia with extra punch.

This super simple and delicious flatbread recipe from Ooni ambassador Bryan Ford combines tangy sourdough with classic middle eastern herbs. Topped with Za’atar and olive oil, these simple breads can be enjoyed plain or with any combination of toppings.