Pizza is one of the most popular dishes in the country today. You can eat it with beer while watching your favorite sports show, or you can create your own gourmet pizza that you can serve for dinner with your family and friends. No matter how you prepare your pizza and when you choose to serve it, it is a great dish to have around the house. If you have problems in removing hot pizza from the oven, here are some steps to help you.
Cook
Start by taking your pizza and cooking it as usual. If you are using pre-baked pizza, all you need is to remove it from the box and from its plastic wrapping before you can place the pizza on the rack. Usually, cooking pizza directly on the rack is not recommended because the dough is too soft. But when you are using pre-baked pizza, it is possible to place it directly on a clean rack because the dough has already been cooked.
Use mitts
Next, be sure that you put on some mitts. Pizzas need to be cooked in high heat. Because of this, the entire insides of the oven will naturally be hot. Even if you leave the oven door open for a couple of minutes, it will likely still be too hot for your bare hands. Oven mitts will protect your hands from burns from the hot air, and will keep your fingers safe from the hot pizza itself.
Use wood spatulas to remove the pizza
If you have cooked the pizza on a pizza stone, you will need to pry it from the pizza stone using a wooden spatula. The wooden spatula will help you lift up the pizza from the pizza stone. You need to remove the pizza from the stone itself, because the stone is very hot and will continue to cook the pizza for as long as the pizza is on the pizza stone. This can lead to a burnt pizza bottom. Once you have pried away the pizza from the stone, you need to slide it towards your plate using the wooden spatula.
Cook in a pan
Another option is to simply cook the pizza in a pan. The best thing about cooking pizza in a pan is that it is much easier to remove. You no longer have to worry about prying the pizza off the stone, because all you need to do is to put on your mitts and lift the pizza pan away. Keep in mind, however, that the pizza pan will be very hot which means that you need to use your thickest oven mitts.
Use parchment paper
Finally, you should also consider using parchment paper to cook your pizza. With this step, all you need is to place the pizza on top of the parchment paper. After the pizza has finished cooking, simply pull out the parchment paper and set the pizza on a plate.
With these steps in mind, you should be able to easily extract your pizza from the pan and enjoy it without burning your fingers.