AQ + MRB’s Gift Guides: Pizza Essentials

We get asked constantly for recommendations on our favorite music, books, and tools and we thought we might as well write up some of these and share them.

We figured we would start with our guide to the most essential tools you need for making great pizza at home. In our extensive testing and research for The Pizza Book we narrowed down the enormous options out there to the things you absolutely need to make the best pizza you’ve ever had.

We hope this guide helps you level up yourself or satiate the hunger of the pizza-obsessed person in your life.

THE PIZZA BOOK

What would a listicle be without shameless self-promotion? We worked for many years honing our craft of making people happy with home-made pizza, and we put everything we learned into this here book. Not only does it have start-to-finish instructions for making a perfect pie, but it also has a ton of full topping ideas, square pies, sides, and even complete menus. Clearly, we’re very proud of it and hope it finds a place under your Hanukkah bush or on your cookbook shelf.

Until the end of the year you can get 25% off any Pizza Book purchases with code THANKS4PIZZA.

DIGITAL SCALE

If you’re already obsessed with pour over coffee or baking then you probably have a digital scale in your kitchen. You don’t need a heavy duty scale, but you do need one that is precise. If you don’t have one yet but you’re interested in making pizza, then it’s time to invest in a digital scale. They aren’t expensive and a good one will last a long time. AQ has used the same for the past five years and has had zero problems with it. Whether he is feeding his sourdough starter, making coffee, or baking, AQ is using his scale every day.

CHEESE GRATER

You’re going to grate a lot of cheese if you regularly make pizza. You’ll need a grater that works well and is easy to handle. We like to use a good old-fashioned box grater. They last forever and you might have one that your parents’ passed down to you. Box graters provide you with many options for how thick or fine you want the cheese to be grated.

IMMERSION BLENDER

Immersion blenders are one of the most useful kitchen tools when cooking for large numbers. Sure, a count- er-top blender works better for pureeing and other tasks, but the utility of a blender that you can place in any bowl can’t really be argued. We use this for large batches of sauce, creamy dressings, soups, pestos, etc.

PIZZA CUTTER

You could use scissors or a sharp knife here, but its much easier (and cooler looking) to cut your pizza with a classic rolling pizza cutter. The size matters less then the sharpness of the blade.

BENCH SCRAPER

When dividing and shaping dough, it’s very useful to have a sharp bench scraper. This is another tool that is useful well beyond pizza, especially if you’re going to follow the rabbit hole to artisanal bread. It helps to have one that is comfortable to hold and also has a very sharp edge.

BAKING STEEL

The Baking Steel is an alternative to the pizza/baking stone. It is made from a solid sheet of steel. We were skeptical when we first heard about it. It’s more expensive, but does that mean that it’s better (or worth it)? The Baking Steel is also a Kickstarter-launched project so we thought we would give it a try. After using it for months to make our pizzas we can easily say that it is worth it. If you are willing to go the extra mile and spend some extra dollars, there is no doubt that it makes superior pizzas compared to a pizza stone. Why is that? While a stone retains heat and can get very hot (which is what you want for pizza), a steel can transfer that high heat faster and more consistently. When you use a baking steel you end up with a more consistently baked bottom crust without having to worry about over-cooking the top of the pizza. We realize that a steel is a bigger investment than a stone, which is why we are not listing it as an essential tool. If you want to upgrade your set-up this is the one thing you should get.

For a full list of tools, check out The Pizza Book or a more complete list on our site.

Until the end of the year you can get 25% off any Pizza Book purchases with code THANKS4PIZZA.