The colorful sweaters and the large glasses. The enthusiasm. The almost childlike amazement, over a handy little tool. And ofcourse the unforgettable tagline "It’s amazing, Mike!". The show was bashed by critics, and praised by students of the era.

To revive the memories of long gone:

Why this post? Well, I’ve found my very own ‘Amazing discovery’!!

I wrote about it, a couple of weeks ago, and since then, we are about 15 pizza’s down the line. And from hands-on experience, I can objectively say that it amazes me! I tend to make my pizza’s in the Napel’s way. In essence: a wet dough, consisting of flour, yeast, oil, salt and water. Combine that with good ingredients, and baked in our pizza-oven, at about 400 degrees centigrade.

The dough is not a problem. The temperature isn’t as wel. But how to get that pizza from the counter to the oven-stone easily? That was always a bigger issue.

The oven came with a tool: a disc, cut in half, made of plywood. You have to place the two halves on the counter, place your pizza-dough on it, and lasttly put on all ingredients. Then, by using the 2 parts, you transfer the dough to the stone, and pull the halves from underneath the crust. It sort of works, but is not ideal, because the dough still sticks to the peel, sometimes.

After that, I made my own pizzapeel. Just a simple, ordinary wooden board, with a handle. Worked better. But also, not without flaws, or without effort. In this case, I needed to use cornwheat, applied to the peel, before putting the dough on it, to prevent from sticking, which in itself cost me a couple of pizza’s, whereas the ingredients would reach the pizza-stone, but the dough got stuck to the peel.

Enter: the Superpeel:

In essence, nothing more than a piece of flat woord, with a hole in it, and a piece of cloth, which wraps around, kind of like a conveyor belt.

I ordered the Superpeel, through the internet. After initial contact with the owner of the site, who also invented the peel, I odered one for myself. Postage to Europe was a bit steep, but the seller assured me that that was due to the charges made by the US Postal Service. He had no choice but to charge the customer the same. So, I went ahead and ordered one. After about a week and a half, the mailman knocked on our door. He had a package. Quite a large package, actually.

Of course, the first thing I did, was unpacking, and get a closer look. Nicely finished wood, smooth surface, and treated with a sealant, which prevents stains and fluids getting into the wood. The cloth, a mixture of polyester and cotton, is nice and strong. Just to be sure, I ordered a second cloth along with the peel; for an extra $5,-, that sounded like the smart option.

The idea behind the peel is actually quite simple: the cloth acts like a conveyor belt, on which the pizza rests. The peel itself slides ver easily underneath the crust, by holding the cloth, with a little piece of wood clamped in the cloth. Keep the little piece of wood in the same place using the one hand, and slide peel under your pizza, using the other hand. Hmmm, maybe a little clip explains it better, tha a few words:

A few days later I made dough for pizza’s. As prescribed in the manual, I dusted  the cloth with flour beforehand, to keep the dough from sticking to it. Made the curst, added sauce, cheese and all sorts of nice ingredients. Next: the moment of truth!

Wow!

Can’t express it any better! Previously I occasionally made a mess of it, while putting the pizza in the oven, but with the Superpeel it’s super-simple! No more messing about with mushrooms falling of, or first landing the toppings and then the dough on the stone, but instead just plain and simple, with total ease and control, getting the pizza onto the stone.

"Sometimes it takes a genius to find the simple things among all the noise."

As far as I’m concerned the idea of the Superpeel is as brilliant as it is simple. And the perfect solution for my "problem".

Conclusion: the posting to Europe makes it a bit of a pricy item, but because of the current exchange rate between the dollar and the euro (€1,- is about $1,50), plus the fact that we eat pizza almost every week, I was able to convince myself, and spend €45,- (about $69,- ; $32,- for the peel and $37,- for posting) on a pizzapeel.

So: if you like to bake (and not just pizza, but also any other wet, unmanageble dough, like ciabatta), I can whole heartedly recommend the Superpeel. My very own ‘Amazing discovery’ !