I missed the pizza party by a couple days, but you've kind of hit the nail on the side of the head here. You're right in that most people don't leave the pizza in long enough, because most people are used to heating frozen pizzas and those go from bleh to burned in about twelve seconds once they've reached target temp.

But it's really the cast-iron that does the heavy lifting, and depending on oven temp and convection-ness and dough thickness you can do a good pizza anywhere between 12 to 30 minutes -- *if* you have a proper surface to work with in the oven. That's where cast-iron does really well.

Pizza stones can do wonders too and you can get away with less grease. I'm a big fan of homemade pizza but I like my crust to soak up the grease up top and be clean on the bottom, and still be crunchy-yet-chewy, so a pizza stone is perfect for that.

Also, if you are lacking cast iron or pizza stoneage, you can use a good heavy Pyrex-or-similar glass dish, or really any sort of heavy ceramic baking pan. Thin-walled aluminum is Right Out, however.

--sofaspud
--dangit now I want pizza for lunch