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The Best Baking Peels

Are flashy, innovative peels better than basic models?

By Updated Feb. 2, 2021
UpdateFebruary 2021
We’ve tested a few more baking peels and changed our recommendations to accommodate a wider variety of user preferences. For more information, read below.

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What You Need To Know

We often use baking peels to move pizza, bread, and other baked goods into, out of, and within hot ovens. Since we last tested them, our winning peel, the innovative EXO Polymer Sealed Super Peel, has changed. It’s now made from a different kind of wood and has a new polymer coating, ostensibly to make it more moisture-proof. EXO also released a new peel with a larger, thinner aluminum blade. Eager to see how these two new Super Peels measured up, we tested them alongside three other peels (one wood, one metal, and one wood-fiber composite) for a total of five products priced from about $10.00 to about $60.00, using them to make thin-crust pizza and rustic Italian bread. In keeping with what we’d learned in our previous testing, we selected peels with blades (the flat, spatula-like part) at least 14 inches wide, allowing us to accommodate large loaves comfortably, and handles that were about 8 inches long, giving us just enough distance from the heat of the oven without sacrificing control.

When baking, we use a peel for three specific tasks. First, we unload raw dough onto a hot baking stone in the oven. This is one of the riskier steps in the baking process, since delicate, carefully formed loaves and pizza rounds can lose their shape if they stick to the peel or get shaken off it too vigorously. Next, we rotate the bread or pizza in the oven to ensure even baking. And finally, we remove the baked items from the oven.

No peel excelled at all three tasks. The wood peel was very good at unloading the dough. Once it was lightly sprinkled with flour, even the stickiest dough slipped right off when we gave the peel’s handle a quick jerk, though occasionally perfect pizza rounds became a bit oblong when we were too forceful. Even better were the two Super Peels, which were fitted with innovative cotton conveyor belts that were practically nonstick once dusted with flour, allowing us to unroll the thinnest and most fragile pizzas without misshaping them.

Unfortunately, none of these models were great at in-oven rotation. The wood peel was too thick to get up and under breads and pizzas easily—a design flaw that also made it hard to remove these foods when fully baked. And while you could technically pick up and rotate the half-baked breads and pizzas with the conveyer belts on the Super Peels, it took a little more time than we’d prefer. In addition, at 16 inches wide, the large aluminum Super Peel was a bit too big to maneuver comfortably within a standard home oven. That said, both did a reasonable—if slightly time-consuming—job of removing the finished goods.

By contrast, the metal and wood-fiber composite blades were much mor...

Everything We Tested

Good : 3 stars out of 3.Fair : 2 stars out of 3.Poor : 1 stars out of 3.

Recommended

Recommended with reservations

Not Recommended

*All products reviewed by America’s Test Kitchen are independently chosen, researched, and reviewed by our editors. We buy products for testing at retail locations and do not accept unsolicited samples for testing. We list suggested sources for recommended products as a convenience to our readers but do not endorse specific retailers. When you choose to purchase our editorial recommendations from the links we provide, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices are subject to change.

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The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing.

Miye Bromberg

Miye is a senior editor for ATK Reviews. She covers booze, blades, and gadgets of questionable value.

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