  Physical principles are involved in almost any aspect of cooking. Here we
analyze the specific process of baking pizzas, deriving in simple terms the
baking times for two different situations: For a brick oven in a pizzeria and a
modern metallic oven at home. Our study is based on basic thermodynamic
principles relevant to the cooking process and is accessible to undergraduate
students. We start with a historical overview of the development and art of
pizza baking, illustrate the underlying physics by some simple common examples,
and then apply them in detail to the example of baking pizza.
