One last hack

Naturally I left off my favorite hack in that pizza hacks post.

How do you get your pizza from the peel onto the stone? Most people answer: Coat the peel liberally with flour, semolina, or cornmeal, give it a jerk, and pray. But there’s a much easier way. Put a piece of parchment paper on the peel, or, if you don’t have a peel or (as in my case) there isn’t room in your kitchen to use one, use a cookie sheet. Fling or stretch your dough (or roll it, I won’t tell) and place it right on the parchment. Top it, and use scissors to trim the parchment roughly around the edge. Then slide the pizza and parchment onto the stone.

The pizza will brown just as well, and this method cuts down 95 percent on the agonized wails of cheese burning on the oven floor.

Reynolds parchment, sold in many supermarkets, is fine, but if you use a lot of parchment, it’s worth buying a 100-pack of flat sheets from [King Arthur](http://www.kingarthurflour.com). (And if you *really* use a lot of parchment, it’s cheaper still to buy it from a restaurant supply store, but they typically sell full-sheet parchment in 500- or 1000-sheet packs.)

Related posts:

  1. Pizza Fanatic

5 thoughts on “One last hack”

  1. Neil

    You can also get good prices on smaller quantities of parchment paper in sheets at “Smart and Final” or “Cash and Carry”.

  2. mamster Post author

    “Smart and Final” seems like a weird name for a store. I mean, I guess if you think about it, it’s a smart place to shop and you won’t have to go anywhere else afterwards, but it also sounds like they just picked two random adjectives. Like “Flippant and Handy.”

  3. Neil

    I know what you mean. I remember seeing the signs for the first time and thinking “what the hell do they sell – discount burial plots?” Or do they just not offer returns or refunds?

  4. Jessica

    This is more or less the method I worked out for putting my ciabatta and other breads onto the stone. I don’t know why anyone who owns a cookie sheet needs a peel except maybe for theatrical purposes.

    However, instead of parchment I use one of those thin teflon/silicon mats (not the thick silpat/roulpat). I’ve seen them under various brand names.

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