Finding the best Pizza Peel

Use a pizza peel to make delicious pizza at home Pizza must be one of the world’s most loved foods, with millions of people worldwide falling for it’s delicious charms every day. There’s nothing like the satisfaction of creating authentic pizza for your friends and family and making pizza at home can be a very rewarding experience.

Whilst anyone can make pizza at home, to truly master the art of pizza making takes a little practice and the right equipment. This is why a pizza peel is an essential piece of equipment in any home pizza chef’s kitchen.
A pizza peel (sometimes also called a pizza paddle) allows you to transfer your pizza to and from the oven with more control, finesse and surety of success.

Do you really need a pizza peel?

To achieve a perfect crispy base and bubbling top, pizza needs to be cooked at a high temperature. The only problem with this is that transferring fresh pizza dough, laden with your favourite toppings, into a very hot oven can be difficult. Fresh pizza dough has a tendency to instantly stick to any hot surface, meaning that once you have placed your dough on your pizza stone or pizza pan there is little chance of moving it without ruining it. Fresh pizza dough can also easily stick to your countertop making it very difficult to move without ruining the shape and integrity of your pizza.

Some people try to overcome dough sticking by using baking parchment under their pizza. This can be ok for moving dough, however one of the fundamental reasons that a pizza stone or pizza oven achieves such a great result is because the ceramic surface draws moisture away from the dough, creating a delicious crispy crust. Baking paper prevents this moisture from being drawn out of the dough resulting in less impressive crust.

What’s more, removing a cooked pizza from a hot oven can also be problematic. Using a spatula or other kitchen tool can eventually and inevitably result in your pizza ending up as a steaming, delicious train wreck on your kitchen floor.

Which pizza peel to buy?

Whether you are making your pizza at home on a pizza stone, or outside in a wood fired oven there is a peel that is designed to suit. Using the right peel can help you create fantastic pizza at home however it’s important to choose one that best suits your individual needs. The major differentiators are the material they are made from, their size and whether they have been designed for moving pizza to or from an oven.

Because there are a wide variety of peels to choose from each with different strengths, to help make sure you buy the peel that best suits your needs we have provided all the information you need to find the best peel, at the best price.