How to Do Pizza Throwing Tricks
Tossing pizza dough can be entertaining for your restaurant patrons or the kids in your kitchen. But it serves the larger purpose of drying out the pizza dough and giving it a light skin on the crust for a crunchy texture. Hand-formed pizzas are also crispier than machine-formed pizza because the the dough does not lose as much gas and air. Hand tossing forms the pizza's signature round shape and develops an uneven surface that makes every pizza unique. Learning the art of pizza dough tossing takes practice and patience, but starting with the proper technique is a step in the right direction. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
The Technique
-
1
Prepare your dough and let it rise.
-
2
Form it into a loose, flattened ball; the dough should be sticky enough that it stays on your arm if you angle it toward the floor.
-
-
3
Prop the ball on the fingertips of your left hand and the fingertips and palm of your right hand. Reverse this order if you're left-handed.
-
4
Wind up your spin by bringing the dough back about a quarter of a turn and then gently spin and toss into the air at the same time. Spin the dough into the air clockwise if you are left-handed, counterclockwise for the right-handed. The centrifugal force generated by the spin will pull out the edges to create a round shape.
-
5
Give the dough as much area as possible to land on, including your forearm. Let the dough fall onto the backs of your hands so that your fingers don't punch through the dough.
-
6
Flick the dough back into the air with the back of your hand using one swift motion.
-
7
Repeat until you have the desired shape.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Expect your first attempts to result in either a big hole in the dough or the dough landing on the floor. Use a wet dish rag to practice with so you don't go waste too much dough.
