Many people who are not familiar with this product may ask, what the heck is a pizza shovel? Is it used to scrape up a pizza that fell out of a delivery truck? Yes that sounds kind of nasty, but sometimes when you get a pizza delivered to your home you just never know. In truth, it is a product far better than that, and one that anyone who likes a good oven baked pizza should have in their kitchen arsenal.
If you have ever made a pizza from scratch, or purchased one of those take and bake pizzas then you can understand the concept. Sure, putting the pizza in the oven is not a big deal, the problem is taking it out of the oven. Once that pie gets hot and bubbly, it can be a pain, literally, getting it out without burning yourself, or dropping it on the door of the oven or worse yet, the floor. Those take and bake places always seem to put their pizzas on flimsy paper trays, ones you can’t handle very well, with or without oven mittens.
So what is one supposed to do to get their nice and bubbly pizza out of a hot oven? This is where the pizza shovel comes in. They are available in a variety of different sizes, from small to large, round and square, and they have a long handle at one end, and a flat surface on the other, like a flat shovel. If you have ever been in a real brick and mortal pizza parlor, one with the old school brick ovens, or seen one in the movies or on the television, you know what it is. The pizza master takes his or her shovel and slides it in under the ready pizza, and yanks it out in one smooth motion.
You can do this at home, because they come in sizes that you can use yourself. You can purchase them online, or at a kitchen specialty shop. Some of them come with a pizza stone, which keeps your pizza on a flat surface, and keeps the crust hot. Because it is a stone, you can cut the pizza six ways to Sunday and not mess up your counter tops. Because the stone holds the heat, you can enjoy your pizza slice, and come back for more without it getting cold.
Some shovels have shorter, wooden handles, and these can sell for just around 45 dollars, depending on where you buy it. These handles are short, so if you don’t want to risk getting burned, no worries, there are others that have handles up to a meter in length. They are made from stainless steel, and are one piece models, with tubular steel handles. In many cases, you can find them for well under one hundred dollars, depending one the size of the shovel end, and whether it is round or square.
There are some things you need to consider when purchasing a pizza shovel, one of them is certainly price. While you may find some for cheap, you get what you pay for, and these shovels may not last through the test of time, and may be made from materials that are cheap and not well put together.