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I’m the first person to tell you that having a lot of fancy equipment rarely makes the difference in quality cooking. A good knife, a pot, and a spoon to stir is all most cooks need to turn out yummy meals at home. But making a perfect pizza… well, that is like making the perfect Southern fried chicken: it seems simple, but it is deceptively difficult. With fried chicken, it’s technique and practice. With pizza, the same thing goes. However, the right pizza tools and equipment can really make a difference for pizza, especially when it comes to the crust!
Now, unless you are really a homemade pizza enthusiast, you won’t want to take the time or invest the money to learn how to make pizzas like the pros. Making great pizza can be a daunting task. Just the difficulty many home cooks have with working with the dough is enough to dissuade them from tackling a pizza at home. But there is nothing like a pizza that you take the time to make yourself, with good cheese and all your favorite toppings. Why bother, though, if it’s going to turn out terrible?
Instead of picking up the phone or ordering a pizza online, or even popping in a frozen pizza, consider that perhaps you are not a bad pizza maker, but are simply working with the wrong pizza-making tools. Here are some great pizza-making products that can make your pizza crafting experience a lot less difficult.
The Pizza Bible: Your Pizza Master Class!
Before you invest in pizza-making equipment, you may as well start with a great pizza cookbook.
This book is basically a master class in pizza-making, covering nine different regional styles, including standards like Neapolitan, Roman, and Chicago, as well as renowned pizza sub-specialties like St. Louis and Californian, written by chef and 11-time world Pizza Champion Tony Gemignani.
It also covers calzones and Focaccia. Product recommendations right down to the tomatoes are listed, including Tony’s go-to flours. This is a book for the serious pizza lover!
- Your pizza master-class from a Pizza champion. Covers every style of pizza and contains over 75 recipes. Tony even recommneds authentic high protein flours, tomato products, and mroe.
- Youll learn how to make pizza like the pros at home!
- Tony Gemignani is the chef and owner of eight restaurants. Tonys Pizza Napoletana, Capos, Tonys Coal-Fired Pizza, and Slice House at AT&T Park in San Francisco; Pizza Rock in Sacremento and Las Vegas; and Tonys of North Beach and Slice House by Tony Gemignani in Rohnert Park.
- He is also the prorietor of the International School of Pizza in San Francisco where he certifies chefs from around the world!
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Super Pizza Peel
If you’ve ever tried to slide a pizza off a peel, only to find that it is much more difficult than the experts at the pizzeria make it seem, you’ll be interested in Tip For Getting Your Homemade Pizza to Slide Into the Oven.
Perhaps the best-kept secret for homemade pizza makers is the Super Pizza Peel, which uses a pastry sheet on a conveyor system to deposit pizza, or any dough, neatly into the oven. There are also other sliding pizza peels to consider.
- ✅【Effortlessly Transfer Pizza】This pizza peel utilizes the sliding design. With just a subtle pull and push, effortlessly lift and position your pizza with precision. This ensures your pizza maintains its perfect shape and safeguards the integrity of its toppings. Elevate your pizza-making experience with our innovative sliding pizza peel – because every pizza deserves perfection.
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Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Pizza Stone (Firebrick Construction)
While it is not true that a pizza stone (or baking stone) will turn your oven into a professional brick oven (those use burning wood or coal), if you want your pizza dough to have that perfect crispy outside and chewy inside, you’ll need a stone or steel to get it.
Look for one that is made of the same brick material that lines kilns or furnaces, like this Old Stone Oven Rectangular Pizza Stone, ensuring that it can stand up to the highest heat and have even heat distribution. Although actual stone is good as well, avoid baking stones made of compressed concrete.
Here’s a tip: heat the stone until it is extremely hot, even hotter than your target oven temperature, then turn down the oven before sliding your pizza onto the stone. This will give the crust that blast of heat which yields a crispy and bubbly outside, while the inside is soft-chewy. If your pizza stone is not hot enough, it won’t work!
Pizza Screen
Most major pizza chains (Domino’s, etc.), and pizzerias, rely on pizza screens to send their pizzas through the oven. You may prefer your pizza baked on a pizza stone, but a pizza screen does allow for nice, even baking, with lots of air circulation.
The advantage for the home cook is that there is no need to slide the pizza dough off a peel into the oven. The dough is simply shaped and then placed onto the screen (allowing around two inches around the edge), and then the pizza is assembled right on the screen before the whole thing is placed in the oven. As well, a pizza screen can be used on the outdoor grill!
Keep in mind that you will need to generously spray your pizza screen with cooking spray before using it, and do not use harsh detergents to clean it (it will become nicely seasoned over time and turn a dark glossy brown color).
Food Scale for Flour
Although not essential, a food scale can help you measure out the perfect amount of flour for your pizza dough, leading to more consistent results. I should mention, though, that this will only be helpful if your pizza dough recipe calls for flour amounts in weight like grams or ounces.
A cup of flour can differ in weight by up to 20 grams or so, leading to such variability in the amount of flour you’re using that you will have to adjust and add flour to the dough, or even moisture.
Baking requires precise amounts, so pro bakers rely on scales to measure ingredients. However, in all honesty, the idea that home pizza makers need a food scale is questionable.
One can certainly help, but scales are more useful to a professional kitchen where yields may need to be adjusted on the fly.
It’s easier to adjust a recipe when ingredient amounts are given in weights instead of volume amounts. If you make pizza all the time and want to have a reliable pizza dough recipe with consistent results, then a scale might be for you.
If you are an avid baker in general, you will definitely need one!
Pizza Cutter
Of course, you need something to cut your pizza into slices. There are two basic styles of pizza cutters: pizza wheels and rocker-style cutters. Pizza wheels are good for those who make pizza occasionally.
If you make lots of pizzas at home, you may like a rocker-style cutter. Unlike pizza wheel cutters, they are very sharp; they’re basically big curved knives (be careful!) They can make cutting a pizza quite effortless. You just hold both ends of the cutter and cut the pizza using a rocking motion.
- Pizza Cutter Rocker: Unlike an ordinary pie slicer or wheel roller cutter, this rocking pizza cutter slices smoothly through your pizza crust without pushing aside your pizza toppings
- Chop Slice Dice: A multi-functional slicing tool perfectly constructed for thin crust pizza and deep dish pizza, cheesecakes, brownies, chopping and dicing food and herbs
- Professional Quality: These premium pizza slicers are crafted from anti-rust, food grade stainless steel with super sharp blades
- Safe: Features an ergonomic design providing maximum safety, with plastic protective cover for safer handling and easy storage – plus a fully dishwasher safe
- Perfect Gift Idea: Make gift-giving a breeze by choosing our pizza cutter as a thoughtful present for pizza lovers, home chefs, and food enthusiasts
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Pizza rocker cutters take up more room and you have to take care of the edge to keep them at their most effective. If you have limited space and want to be able to just throw a pizza cutter into the junk drawer, a pizza wheel is probably a better choice.
If you want a wheel-type pizza cutter that is actually sharp but still compact, consider the Dalstrong Pizza Wheel. Made of heavy-duty stainless steel, it’s sharp enough that it comes with a thumb guard and a blade cover to protect the edge — and your fingers.