Cucina Twin Pack Pizza Bases Review

Aldi sell Cucina twin pack pizza bases, but are they a dud, or a keeper? It wasn’t a planned purchase, I just grabbed a pack one morning while walking round. It was one of those moments of madness as that then meant I had to use them! Costing 89p for two, these pizza bases are just 45p each I think it was the price that sucked me in and I thought they were worth a try.

These are vacuum packed, so will stay in the cupboard for 1-2 months, but, once opened, the second one in the pack needs to either be used, or frozen, within 24 hours.

These are a little over 10″ in width, which made them a tight fit in my toaster oven as I jiggled it round to fit the baking tray (although I’ll typically cut a tiny slice off any base that’s too large).

I made up a quick pizza base sauce of my own, then opened the fridge to see what needed to be used up that I could use to top the pizza with.

The “official cooking instructions” provided say:

Cook in the oven: Fan 190C, Electric 200C, Gas 6 for 7-9 minutes.

Spread tomato sauce evenly across the pizza base to the edge. Sprinkle grated cheese evenly over the sauce and top with your chosen topping.
Place pizza directly onto the middle shelf of a preheated oven or pizza oven tray for the time specified or until cheese is bubbling.
Serve immediately. Ensure product is thoroughly heated and piping hot throughout. Do not reheat. Not suitable for microwave heating.

Pizza Toppings:

Today I just wanted to use up some red pepper slices, so this pizza is just pizza sauce, red peppers, half a sausage, onion and cheese.

I did have to slice a piece off the end of the pizza base to get it to set – and I also didn’t spread my pizza sauce all the way to the edge (so I don’t get mucky fingers when I pick up a slice to eat!

Cocura Pizza Bases Review

For me, these bases are far too thin and crispy. I’m a fan of moist bases as a rule. If you like thin and crispy bases then you’ll like these. If you have “trouble with your teeth” and biting through thick, hard, pizza bases then these are best avoided.

Maybe … it was “all my fault”…. maybe if I’d put the sauce to the edges and loaded the toppings to the edges, it wouldn’t have had a chance to become so crispy and dry.

Would I recommend these to a friend?

No, unless that person said they’d only ever eat thin and crispy bases. There was nothing outstanding about these pizza bases and I won’t bother to get them again. There are plenty more in the shops I could try instead, to be honest.

For me, a naan bread base makes a better pizza base than these, in a hurry, as they’re nice and soft.