I have dreamt of a pizza oven in our back garden for years. I placed it on the husband’s “to do” list about 10 years ago. Every time, here or abroad, I spotted a traditional wood-burning pizza oven I would drop unsubtle hints and be promised one for the following summer. In the end, with no sign of the pizza oven materialising, I changed tack and put the Finnish-designed Uuni 2 wood-fired oven on my Christmas list. Yep, my Christmas list. That’ll throw him, I thought.

So finally this weekend was warm enough to get my pizza oven out and learn how to drive it. It isn’t the home-made traditional oven I had originally envisaged, but this is nonetheless a thing of beauty and, finally, I have a pizza oven in the back garden.

My first attempts were simple – home-made pizza dough with a tomato base, mozzarella, few chillies, Italian salami and fresh basil, some with a few peppers. It took a bit of mastering to get the flames inside large enough to ensure the pizza is cooked evenly – turning it round halfway through is a bit of a faff otherwise – and to get the timings right. But ultimately we produced the best pizza we had eaten since last in Italy. Absolutely fantastic – a lot less hassle than a traditional BBQ and so lovely to be sitting out on a beautiful, warm, sunny May evening in an English garden eating fresh pizza.

I think the Uuni is a fairly priced, excellent alternative to a husband who never gets round to building a traditional wood-fired oven for you. Put one on your Christmas list!

I used a Jamie Oliver everyday pizza dough recipe (with 00 flour) and it was simple and perfect.