Nota bene: All products in this article are independently selected and vetted by InsideHook editors. If you buy something, we may earn an affiliate commission.
For those of us who are into making pizza, the past decade has been an exciting era of innovation for the final minutes of the process: most notably, the invention of home ovens capable of reaching temperatures in excess of 900 degrees, bringing true Neapolitan-style pizzas right to our backyards. There’s been less innovation aimed at the crucial first few minutes, the time when flour, water, salt and yeast come together to make a dough. That changes with the release of the new Ooni Halo Pro Spiral Mixer, a versatile appliance that’s designed specifically with great pizza in mind.
“The expansion into the mixer category is similar to the inspiration for the original Ooni,” says Kristian Tapaninaho, founder of the company best known for its home pizza ovens. “I started making a lot of pizza at home and started hitting these limits of what’s possible with a domestic electric oven, and the same thing happened years later with mixers finding out that my dough wasn’t coming out as well as I wanted it to.”
That frustration led to researching what professional-grade mixers do differently and how to bring that quality into a home appliance. Most home mixers are the type known as “planetary” mixers, so named because the mixing attachments rotate around a central point while circling the mixing bowl. They’re versatile and great for making cake batters, cookie dough and whipped cream, or for accomplishing other kitchen tasks with the right attachments. But when it comes to making a heavier dough for bread or pizza, they tend to struggle.
Professional pizzerias and bread bakeries are more likely to be using a “spiral” mixer. In these models, a dough hook rotates in one place and the bowl rotates around it. Additionally, they often feature a breaker bar, which is just what it sounds like: a big metal bar extending vertically into the bowl next to the spiral hook. As the hook draws the dough through it, the breaker bar stretches and breaks the dough. This ensures even mixing and, more importantly, helps develop gluten, giving dough its all-important elasticity.
In short, a spiral mixer with a breaker bar does a much better job of simulating kneading by hand than a planetary mixer does. If a planetary mixer is about speed, a spiral mixer is about going strong and steady.
I received a review model of the Ooni Halo Pro and was curious to find out how it compares to making pizza dough by hand, which is how I’ve been doing it for the past five years. The Halo stands out for design right out of the box; it’s the kind of device one could imagine coming from Apple if Apple made kitchen gear. Most spiral mixers look like something you’d find in a working kitchen: industrial and bare metal. The Halo is sleek and modern, its surfaces made of die-cast aluminum (painted in either charcoal or white) with a glass top panel. It chirps a friendly electric chime when you power it on. Built-in lights illuminate the bowl. Gentle hydraulics lift the mixing arm in a way that’s simply satisfying. This is a mixer you wouldn’t mind giving a permanent home on your counter.
The interface is well-designed and intuitive. A single knob controls everything through a digital display. It doesn’t have to do a lot: it controls the rotation speed (expressed in either RPMs or as a percentage of the maximum) and a timer, which automatically stops the mixer when it reaches zero.
Which At-Home Pizza Oven Set-Up Is Right for You?
There’s never been a better time to make pies at home than right nowAs a general-purpose tool, the mixer can work with just about any dough recipe you choose. I nonetheless reached out to Kristian for a few tips on getting the best results. He recommends using slower speeds, in the bottom third of the range, to approximate natural kneading. Start with a general mix to make sure that everything is well-combined, then run the mixer for 12-15 minutes before letting the dough rest for 20-30 minutes. Then give it one last short mix for a minute or two and it’s ready for fermenting.
All of the pizzas I’ve made with the new mixer turned out really well, but as with learning to use any new tool, there’s a period of adjustment. My second batch, for example, may have mixed a little too long. The gluten was so strong that the dough was actually difficult to stretch. But by batch three, using the same recipe I’ve hand-kneaded for years, everything was dialed in. The dough was pliable and stretchy, as easy to shape as any I’d made by hand, and when slipped onto the deck of a hot oven it puffed right up around the edges, producing the airy, chewy crust Neapolitan pies are famous for. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Of course, making a pizza dough as good as what you might make by hand isn’t by itself a strong selling proposition. Where the Halo Pro really shines is doing that at scale. Manually kneading dough for a couple pies is one thing; doing it for an entire pizza party is a major chore. This mixer can whip up large quantities in a short time. The bowl is big for a home mixer, with a max capacity of five kilograms of dough, easily enough for 15 pizzas in the 12-to-14-inch size. Invite your friends, because that’s a lot of pie.
The flipside of that large capacity is that there are minimum requirements too. With not enough stuff in the mixer, it may have a hard time getting everything fully incorporated. The instruction manual recommends using at least a kilogram of dough, which makes three small pizzas or a couple big ones. It’s rare that I would make less than that anyway, so that strikes me as a reasonable starting point. But if you’re just making one or two pies, you might as well do it by hand.
What about making things other than pizza? A notable feature on the Halo Pro is that the breaker bar is removable so that you can swap out the dough hook for a silicone beater paddle for making batter or a whisk for liquids. I haven’t tested these attachments as much as the dough hook. We did make one batch of chocolate chip cookies with the beater, which required some tending to mix correctly, perhaps because we were starting out below the minimum amount. A double-batch may have fit the mixer better, and bakers will want to consider the capacity requirements when comparing the Halo Pro to other mixers. Regardless, the cookies baked perfectly in the end and tasted wonderful, with chocolate chips distributed evenly throughout.
The whisk attachment, fortunately, has a much lower minimum of just 300 ml of liquid. I tried it out with a pint of heavy cream and a touch of confectioner’s sugar, which it transformed into perfectly aerated whipped cream in no time. If you need to make a whole lot of Irish Coffees, the Halo Pro’s got you covered.
The Halo Pro went on sale this month for $799. That’s a significant investment, inviting comparison to high-end planetary stand mixers. The Halo Pro’s removable breaker bar and extra attachments put it in the running for all-around use, though someone more focused on baking cakes and cookies may have different priorities than someone focused on bread and pizza. I’m personally obsessed with pizza, and for that the Halo Pro is very appealing. That it capably handles other uses is just, well, the icing on the cake.
Since this is not just a new product but an entirely new category for Ooni, it’s worth noting also that it can be registered for a free five-year extended warranty. Obviously I’ve only been able to test it for a short time, too soon to judge its longevity, but it does feel very sturdy. Given the company’s track record with ovens, I’m optimistic about the durability of their mixer.
I’m sure I’ll continue tweaking my dough recipes as I get more time with the machine, but from early testing I’ve no doubt I’ll be using the Halo Pro often. I’m already getting great dough out of it, and it makes the prep work of entertaining a group tremendously easy. If you already have an outdoor oven and want to maximize your use of it, this new mixer is a great add-on, just in time for warmer weather. I’m already looking forward to pizza summer.
More Like This
We've put in the work researching, reviewing and rounding up all the shirts, jackets, shoes and accessories you'll need this season, whether it's for yourself or for gifting purposes. Sign up here for weekly style inspo direct to your inbox.
