Stovetop Skillet Pizza: a slice of disappointment

We miss hosting pizza parties with the wood-fired pizza oven we built in Arlington. In our small Barcelona flat we avoid cranking up an oven -- it gets hot here, and energy is more expensive than in the States. Could we make pizza on the stovetop?

TL;DR: No -- the corona was floppy and the crust gummy instead of crispy.

Classic Margherita: tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella, basil

Most recipes for "cast iron pan pizza" build it in the pan but then cook it in a hot oven. The Kitchn has a good post that cooks one side at a fairly low temperature, then flips, tops, and finishes covered to melt the cheese; seems like a good place to start, but we'll make our own dough.

I'm using the same 66% hydration I used for our pizza parties, similar to when we tested steel, stone, and brick for the oven during COVID. The pizza flour we can find here contains sodium carbonate as a leavener which I don't want, so we'll use strong flour (Farina de blat de força) that has 13% protein -- close to the 12.5% that our Italian 00 flour had.

350 g  Flour, strong (13% protein)

  2 g  Yeast (1/2 tsp)

 10 g  Salt (volume depends on coarseness)

230 g  Water

Weigh the dry ingredients into a bowl, stir to combine, make a well, and weigh in the water. 

Stir, combine, and push around to get it to form a shaggy ball.

On the counter, knead enough to get the lumps out; it'll be sticky.

This should be good enough for an extended rise with the high hydration we're using -- the "no knead" technique.

Put back into a covered bowl or lidded tub and let rise slowly in the fridge for 1-3 days; the long slow fermentation develops a lot more flavor than fast rises; it should at least double in size. 

I let it rise 3 days, pulled it out 2 hours before starting to prep and saw it was bubbly -- hopefully not too over-risen. I turned out the 570 g blob onto a floured counter and cut it into three 190 g balls, shaped into balls, and dropped them into lightly oiled containers to rise a bit. I used this time to make a garlic-chili oil and gather toppings.

As the Kitchn says, I cooked the first side in a oiled cast iron skillet for a couple minutes to set it, then flipped and topped.

After topping, I covered with a lid until the cheese melted, and checked the bottom for scorching, and pulled it out when it was browned enough.

Our third came out with the best texture, using level #6 (of 0-9) on our induction cooktop for both sides. But the corona was gummy and the center didn't really seem cooked all the way through. It may be that our elderly induction cooktop doesn't have coils that extend to the edge of our cast-iron pan, but I really don't see how we could ever get a crust like from our pizza oven -- it's just a slice of disappointment. With a certified Napoli-style pizza place a half block from our house, this just isn't worth the time and trouble.

Our best: Mallorcan sobrasada and quail eggs

We'd like to try using the same dough recipe (the texture and quantity were good) but cook it on a barbeque. We've done this before, but we'll need something under it -- aluminum foil? -- or else it'll sag through rack like the clock in Dali's "Persistence of Memory".