Top ten essential accessories for pizza making

It takes a good dough and quality ingredients to make a great pizza but we also need our tools. Here are my top 10 of essential pizza making tools that I can’t do without, in order of importance.

10. Ooni Volt

You might think it a bit strange that an oven is not number one on my list. The truth is that I can make a really good pizza using just a frying pan and a grill. Of course it is much easier to use a proper oven and my go to is the Ooni Volt. It cooks pizza at 450 degrees centigrade and can be used indoors or out.

9. A Room Thermometer

I am a dough nerd and I like to write down all my dough recipes and this means recording the room temperature so I can adjust my yeast and fermentation times another day.

8. A Stand Mixer

Not essential for everyone but if you are making pizza regularly and large quantities then this makes mixing and kneading a whole lot easier and gives you consistent results. I always mix my batch on single speed for exactly 12 minutes.

7. A Turning Peel

A small round headed pizza peel that makes it easier to turn the pizza in a small oven like an Ooni. Not essential but definitely easier than trying to turn with a launching peel.

6. Flat bottomed Ladle.

Just makes spreading the tomato sauce that bit easier. Scoop, drop, spread.

5. Metal Launch Peel.

Sprinkle a little flour and then slide under your topped pizza, stretch a little further on the peel and then launch into the oven. Try not to leave the topped pizza on the work surface for very long as that is when it begins to stick.

4. Large mixing bowls.

One for the cheese, one for the sauce, one for the flour. Also used for weighing out the ingredients. My bowl takes 4kg of flour and my mixer can take 8Kg of four for a single batch.

3. Dough trays

I can’t do without these. I have some that will stack and fit in a domestic fridge and other larger ones for when I am doing bigger events.

2. Precision Scales.

Longer fermentation times need tiny amounts of yeast and this requires precision scales. They are quite cheap and I cannot risk making dough without having an exact yeast measurement for my records.

1. Dough Scraper

This is the top of my list for 'cannot make pizza without.' I use it to cut up my dough and shape it but most importantly it helps me get the dough balls out of the tray and ready for stretching and topping. One of the most important parts of successful pizza making is to get the dough balls out without squishing them or messing up the shape. If the dough ball contracts the gluten will tighten and the pizza ball is hard work to shape.

There you have it, my top 10. Tell me what items you cannot do without and what you think I have missed.