Pizza pan help
I have been making pizza once a week for 8 years — and recently my pizza stone cracked and I have had trouble since. I am thinking of changing gears — a peel. Where do I get one, are they aluminium, how does the dough not stick to it, should they be preheated like a stone or room temp?
merci for any help
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9 Comments:
BiereBeer: You don't cook the pizza on a pizza peel. The pizza peel is used only for moving the pizza into and out of the oven, onto a pizza stone or similar surface.
You keep the pizza from sticking to the peel by putting a thin dusting of dough on the peel.
I typically stretch my dough shells on a floured surface, transfer them to the flour-dusted peel and then quickly build my pie there. When you're ready to transfer to the pizza stone, you sort of shimmy the pizza peel quickly to see if the pizza is sticking. If you've done it right, your pizza should sort of "float" on the flour—it's acting as a dry lubricant—as you shimmy the peel under it.
You might also see this thread on pizza stones: Baking Stone Sub?
Adam Kuban at 7:32PM on 03/18/09
No stone, no peel in my opinion. The stone does a lot do draw out the moisture of the base of the crust and provides not only crispiness but also over time used...flavor. Think about how a well seasoned pan or grill really provides more than just a sterile cooking vessel. When I fire up my baking stones in the ovens at home there is a combination of really good yeast breads and as my son's friends have said, "Oh, man, great pizza smell!" Get yourself another stone, scrape it when dirty after a thorough high heat 500 + to remove debrive. Peel, yeah. I use a wooden one all the time with a dusting of fine cornmeal or flour and slide the pizza directly onto a 550 degree stone that has been preheated for an hour. If my oven went to 750 or 800, I'd be there in a minute.
dhorst at 7:37PM on 03/18/09
Oh, forgot to mention that I sometimes dust the peel with a small amount of kosher salt or sea salt along with the flour or fine corn meal to season and also add to the crispy texture of the bottom of the crust. Hope it helps.
dhorst at 7:40PM on 03/18/09
Somewhere I aquired a really stupid cookie sheet that had one angled side with a silicon grip, and no other sides. I tried using it for cookies, but the cookies slid madly all over, bumping into each other and trying to slide off the edges. A little bit of a tilt, and I had cookies acting like bumper cars. So much for even spacing.
The cookie sheet was destined for the charity bin when I realized it would make a great pizza/bread peel. I use a little cornmeal rather than flour, but even without it, the dough slides right off unless it's seriously wrong and goopy.
And, unlike the wooden peel that I also use, if the pizza wants to stick or malform when I'm trying to move it, I can leave the whole shebang in the oven and then remove it in a minute or two when the crust has firmed up enough.
dbcurrie at 7:48PM on 03/18/09
I like to do the salt and cornmeal too on the peel....word of caution: work quickly after you lay the dough on the salty meal: it pulls out moisture and INCREASES sticking, so salt, build, and bake immediately!
Cary at 10:19AM on 03/19/09
To cut down on floury mess in our small apt kitchen I've been putting the pizza on parchment paper. Slides right off the peel onto the stone and nothing to clean up after.
Mike Fox at 11:59AM on 03/19/09
I stretch my dough on a wooden peel and slide it into a screaming hot cast iron skillet preheated in the oven like a stone. The slide should be one quick motion to avoid any folding of the dough.
Kerosena at 11:49AM on 03/20/09
Word of caution on aluminium peel, pizza tends to stick. Is OK for moving pie around in oven after the crust has had a chance to crist a bit, but wood is a much better option for delivering uncooked pie into the oven.
dmcavanagh at 9:01PM on 03/20/09
I concur with a number of the comments above. Get a new pizza stone. There's no substitute! I have that same old aluminum cookie pan as dbcurrie has. It works great as a peel, and is a better shape for me because I make oblong pizzas. Lastly, parchment is the way to go. I buy large oblongs from King Arthur flour, and they are a perfect size. (Using parchment means you don't need to flour the peel/cookie sheet.) The pizzas look gorgeous, never stick, and are reliable enough for company!
Teachertalk at 10:15PM on 03/20/09