Tip For Getting Your Homemade Pizza to Slide Into the Oven

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Whenever I see professional pizza makers putting their pizza into an oven, it just slides off the peel as pretty as can be. When I make pizza at home, which I often do, I always find it hard to get the pizza to slide off my pizza peel without messing up the shape of the pizza, or potentially even ruining it. As well, some of the toppings might fall off, etc.

One problem is the pizza peel itself, or whatever you are sliding the pizza off of. My pizza peel is a fairly rough wooden one. That is not exactly conducive to sliding a flat thin dough off of, especially one weighted down with toppings.

But at the same time, a smooth metal one may not be any better, as there is more surface area making contact with the pizza dough.

See also: What Do You Need to Make Pizza Like a Pro at Home?

Of course, there are lots of factors that will affect how well your pizza slides into the oven. Wet dough, dryer dough etc. If I made pizzas every day of my life then I’d probably be able to do it without any problems.

Part of the secret, after all, is to have the dough just right and to work very quickly. The longer the dough sits, the more it sticks. But, that isn’t me. I make an awesome pizza when it comes down to it, but I don’t show any professional smoothness while doing it.

I really dislike the kind of cooking advice that goes, “just practice a lot” and you’ll get better at it. As if I am going to make pizzas all the time just for the practice. I’m not that kind of food blogger, sorry.

The two most time-honored ways to make sure your pizza will come off without a hitch are using lots of flour or cornmeal. Here are some basic tips:

• Before you begin to shape and top your dough, have all your toppings ready and convenient for topping, so that you can work quickly.
• While shaping your dough, make sure it is not too wet. If it is, apply flour while you start to push the dough into shape.
• Put plenty of cornmeal on your pizza peel. Once you have shaped your dough or rolled it out, transfer it to the pizza peel on top of the cornmeal.
• If you feel like you need to add more cornmeal. Be especially careful to make sure there is enough cornmeal along the edges, where the dough is likely to sick.
• Work quickly to top the pizza and while doing so, shake the pizza peel to slid the dough back and forth a bit. This will help keep the pizza dough loose.
• Slide the topped pizza onto a very hot pizza stone.
• When making more than one pizza, scrape the excess cornmeal from the pizza stone onto a plate (making sure not to burn yourself). If you leave the cornmeal on the pizza stone between pizzas, it will burn and potentially affect the taste of the next pizza.