My pizza stuck to my pizza peel!!!!

[laughsandlaughs]

I made homemade pizza dough for the first time last night and it tasted really good....but it was REALLY ugly and made a big mess. I formed the pizza dough and put in on a peel covered with a light layer of cornmeal, added toppings,etc, opened up my oven door and tried to slide it onto my hot, hot, HOT pizza stone and it wouldn't slide!! It then slid partway, with the pizza hanging off the edge of the stone...what a mess!!

Finally with DH's help I sort of got it on the stone (UGLY) baked and we ate and loved it, but I don't want to go threw that again!!

Any suggestions?

[Gail]

Sure thing!

Okay. You put your cornmeal on the peel, then your dough. BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE, you give that peel a little back and forth shake-- sort of a test run to make sure the thing moves. If it doesn't, you can still lift up your dough (maybe just a part of it) and scoot some more cornmeal underneath. Shake it again and keep adding or spreading cornmeal (or semolina works, too) until your dough is sliding. THEN put your toppings on.

Guaranteed.

[Grace]

Gail's method works sometimes(sorry Gail - I tried your method once too - after my first disaster, but once I put the toppings on it was SOOO heavy, it still wouldn't move!), but I use a totally foolproof method - PARCHMENT PAPER! Put a big piece of parchment on your peel, put your dough on top and assemble your pizza, and then slide the whole thing (including the parchment paper) right onto the stone. You will still get the crust you want from the stone, but if you want (although it's completely unnecessary), you can remove the paper after the pizza is about 1/2 way baked. I feel your "pain" with your sticking problem - same thing happened to me, and boy was I aggravated! Didn't deter me from pizza making though, because as you pointed out, that pizza was still darn good even if it was ugly! Good luck.

[This message has been edited by Grace (edited 06-19-2001).]

[Gail]

Originally posted by Grace:
Gail's method works sometimes(sorry Gail - I tried your method once too - after my first disaster, but once I put the toppings on it was SOOO heavy, it still wouldn't move!)[This message has been edited by Grace (edited 06-19-2001).]

No offense taken. Sorry it didn't work for you. I should mention that there was one occasion where I built an incredibly heavy pizza and ran into that problem. I had a feeling it was going to be stubborn, so I shook it first (not a bad practice even for those of us who've gotten good at pizzamaking) and the thing refused to budge. I got a spatula under the crust, added cornmeal in a few strategic spots, gave it another few shakes and was able to launch as usual. Dunno why it didn't work for you. I'm frankly stymied.

The parchment method looks very interesting. Some day I'm going to give it a try. Right now I'm still working on fully conquering the semolina method, which seems to be a bit more problematic in the case of those heavier pizzas.

[SandyM]

The "shake" method Gail mentions always, always works for me. If it moves at that point, then I can load my toppings on and go from there. Before going into the oven, I give it another "gentle" shake. If it moves slightly, I'm ready to ease that bad boy on the hot, hot stone. (I tried something other than "gentle" the first time and had cheese and onions all over my peel - not a good move)

I'm a die-hard semolina user. Cornmeal worked for me, but I hated the grit it left on the crust. The parchment paper technique has me intrigued, but until it fails me, I'm going to with my tried and true.

[RunnerKim]

Another tip on the shaking & transferring to the stone is to keep the peel fairly level - don't tip it or the toppings will slide off. It does pay to practice with just the dough on the peel first and I would plan the first couple of pizzas to be simple & elegent varities (pizza margherita for example) until you build a bit of confidence.

It doesn't sound like this was your problem, but don't let the dough sit on the peel (to rise or just as you finish getting toppings ready) - make sure you shake it before adding the toppings if this should happen.

Kim

[Beth]

Like Gail, I give it plenty of cornmeal and slide more anywhere it seems to be sticking, but there are two other things I thought I'd mention:

1) if you brush or spray the crust with a light coating of olive oil, it seems to help prevent any sauce or toppings from seeping into the thin spots of the dough and creating new sticky places; and

2) I discovered a pizza parlor we used to go to used rice flour because it was less prone to absorbing moisture and sticking to the peel. You could try that.