Essential Tools to Up Your Pizza-Making Game

Making authentic Neapolitan pizzas is an art form. As is true with most cooking, using the right tools can make a big difference when it comes to results. We have curated the best pizza-making tools used by professional chefs in Italy and around the world. They will make the cooking process easier as well as more enjoyable. Here is our list of essential items for making delicious pizzas at home:

• A Dough Scraper and Storage Box: one of the hallmarks of Neapolitan pizza is the matrix of air bubbles that form within the dough to make the crust light and chewy. Those air bubbles can be damaged when the dough is bruised through rough handling or the use of a rolling pin. A dough scraper allows you to easily split and lift dough without causing bruising, while the storage box provides an ideal environment for the dough to rise and rest.
• A Perforated Pizza Peel: transferring an uncooked pizza from your counter into the oven is a tricky task. A stainless steel perforated pizza peel is the best tool we’ve worked with to make this process easier. The perforations help shed excess flour, which can burn in the oven, while preventing the dough from sticking to the peel’s surface. This tool is also ideal for removing cooked pizza from the oven.
  The Kalamazoo Pizza Master's Essentials Kit
• A Small Articulated Pizza Peel: Neapolitan pizza ovens operate at extremely high temperatures, typically cooking pizza in three minutes or less. A small pizza peel will allow you to easily rotate your pizza in the oven to ensure all sides cook evenly. You can also use this peel to “dome” your pizza, or lift the pie up towards the ceiling of the oven to quickly brown the toppings.
• A Large Aluminum Pizza Screen: crusts and toppings often cook at different speeds. A pizza screen can be slid underneath the crust to reduce the heat and prevent burning while the toppings continue to cook. We offer all of the tools above as part of our Pizza Master’s Essential Accessories.
• A Good Quality Pizza Cutter: key features to look for when choosing a pizza cutter are a large diameter (approximately 4 inches) and a blade that can be relatively easily removed to re-sharpen. We particularly like mezzaluna pizza cutters – they make it easy to cut uniform pieces with a quick two-handed rocking motion.