This is one of Kmart Australia’s new kitchen appliances that has fans talking, but is the $69 pizza oven really worth the dough?
As an avid cook, I love making my own pizza from scratch. Fortunately, I’ve used high-end ovens from popular brands like Gozney and Ooni, so I have experience baking pizza at home that tastes just as good as it does in restaurants.
For years, Kmart has earned the loyalty of thousands of thrifty shoppers by offering affordable alternatives to luxury brands. For customers, it’s like hitting the jackpot when you find the perfect “duck” in a popular brand that’s out of reach.
So when Kmart released their own pizza maker at an affordable price, my interest was piqued.
Shoppers have been raving about the kitchen gadget on social media, with some claiming it’s a “must-have” for their next dinner party.
At less than $70, it’s definitely one of the cheapest models on the market.
I wanted to try it out and see if it lived up to my expectations.
But if you’re looking to buy a pizza oven without spending a fortune, you might want to reconsider your purchase after reading my review.
This is one of Kmart Australia’s new kitchen appliances that has fans talking, but is the $69 pizza oven really worth the dough?
material
4 cups soft flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2.5 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons white sugar
4 tablespoons olive oil
Warm tap water 330mL
Instructions
Mix the dry ingredients together and make a well in the center. Add oil and water and mix until everything is mixed.
Dust the surface with extra flour and knead the dough by hand for 5 to 10 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. If using a stand mixer, mix for 3-5 minutes.
Roll into a ball, place in the same bowl, drizzle with olive oil and turn over. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside to rest for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
Dust the surface with flour and divide the dough into 3-4 small balls. Place on a large tray or plate, cover with a tea towel, and let rest for 1 hour, until doubled in size.
Once baked, roll out the dough, add your favorite toppings and bake.
To give you a sense of my cooking style, I love making pizza at home. I always make my own dough and slow-cooked New York-style pizza sauce. In fact, it’s our standard menu.
Some of my favorite pizza toppings include classic margherita, supreme, pepperoni, vegetarian, ham, pineapple, and BBQ chicken.
From what I’ve learned, less is more. A good pizza needs a little bit of topping, so avoid overcrowding the base as this will make the pizza soggy, difficult to roll, and take longer to cook.
My local Kmart was out of pizza makers, so I ended up ordering online. It didn’t take long for it to arrive at my house.
Considering the very low price, I’m very impressed that the box has everything you need, including a pizza peel (with a paddle to lift it out of the oven), a built-in timer, and a small window that shows you how to make it. I received it. Your pizza is cooking.
When I took the oven out of the box, I noticed that it was very light. Weighing just over 4kg, it’s not as heavy as the Gozney Roccbox which weighs less than 20kg.
My first problem was finding a heat resistant surface to use in the oven. According to the manual, this appliance should not be used outdoors and should be stored away from heat-sensitive surfaces, such as laminate or vinyl kitchen benchtops or wooden tables. This basically wiped out every surface in my house.
I decided to give an affordable pizza maker a try to see if it lived up to my expectations. It wasn’t like that
I ended up putting the pizza maker on the stove, but please don’t do this at home. For testing purposes, it was the only “safe” location available. And I wasn’t going to risk my kitchen countertops.
The oven took longer to heat up than the 15 minutes recommended in the manual.
One thing to note is that it does not reach the same scorching temperatures as more expensive products. Kmart only has a temperature of up to 300°C, but more expensive versions can reach over 400°C.
The oven took too long to reach maximum temperature, so I ended up cooking the pizza at 260C, which took about 20-25 minutes to heat up.
It’s also worth noting that Kmart’s ovens are flameless and electric compared to more expensive models.
I had a pizza dinner with my family over the weekend, so I made extra dough to test out the Kmart gadget.
While the oven was heating up, I started rolling out the dough and adding the toppings. I wanted to keep the topping simple, so I chose pepperoni.
It only takes 60 to 90 seconds to cook a perfect pizza on the Ooni or Gosney. It took about 15 minutes to bake in the pizza maker – the manual said it would take longer
It was surprisingly easy to transfer the pizza from the bench to the ceramic stone using the peeler. The secret is to coat the base with semolina flour. Thanks to these little magic particles, the pizza slides smoothly onto the stone. And honestly, these grains have changed my life and taken homemade pizza to a whole new level.
Once the pizza is placed on the stone, close the lid and wait for the dough to form.
To put it in perspective, it only takes 60 to 90 seconds to cook a perfect pizza on your Ooni or Gozney.
The pizza, made in an expensive oven, came out perfectly. You can expect a flaky crust with leopard spots, a smoky flavor, and deliciously melty cheese.
According to Kmart’s manual, most pizzas should be cooked in about 4 to 5 minutes. But even though the base only had three ingredients: pizza sauce, salami, and cheese, the pizza looked pretty pale when I opened it after five minutes. It took about 15 minutes to cook to our liking. We were not impressed with this as we are used to getting our pizza within 2 minutes.
Halfway through the cooking process, I opened the lid to check on the pizza. And I noticed that it wasn’t evenly cooked. So I used the peel to pull the pizza out, rotate it, and put it back in before closing the lid. lid.
It is better to save money and cook pizza in a standard kitchen oven
Once the first pizza was cooked, I put the second pizza in the oven to bake. We sat down to sample the first batch.
My first impressions of the pizza were that the dough didn’t rise, the texture was quite hard, and the cheese wasn’t as sticky or bubbly as I expected.
Unfortunately, the oven’s performance decreased. Despite preheating according to instructions, the pizza was less than satisfying. It is better to save money and cook pizza in a standard kitchen oven.
Would I recommend buying it? Unfortunately, not.
We’re grateful to Kmart for providing affordable options in today’s soaring cost of living, but if you’re serious about making pizza at home, try a pizza oven from a reputable pizza oven brand. I think it’s worth the investment.
However, if you’re not ready to splurge on a fancy pizza oven, the Kmart model is a good starter kit for beginners who want to make pizza at home.
However, it did not meet my expectations and did not provide the quality I expected.
