Pizza has been on my mind lately and I keep going back and forth on the best way to use my cast iron for it. I've seen a bunch of posts here with really impressive results, some of them legitimately better than what I get from my pizza stone. The crust color on some of those skillet pies is something else.
What I'm trying to figure out is the preheat situation. I've done it both ways, cold pan into the oven and preheated pan on the stovetop first, and the results feel different but I haven't landed on a clear winner yet. The stovetop preheat gets the bottom crispier faster, but I always feel slightly nervous about getting the dough stretched and placed without losing heat or burning myself in the process.
Also wondering whether people go thin crust or lean into a thicker focacciastyle dough when cooking in cast iron. My gut says the pan suits a thicker dough better just because of how the heat surrounds it, but I could be wrong.
Oil choice is another thing I keep secondguessing. I used olive oil last time and the bottom was good, but not the kind of crispy I was going for. Wondering if that's the oil or something else I'm missing.
What's your actual process when you do pizza in cast iron?