Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Gadgets: Sharpen your pizza cutter!

Have you ever sharpened your pizza wheel? Have ever even thought about sharpening it?

Yeah, me either. I mean, it's not like you need a sushi knife for whacking your pizza into pieces, right?

So, when I saw that a pizza wheel sharpener ($14.99) existed, I was surprised.

But ... the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I have one pizza wheel that I like, and I use it for all sorts of things besides pizza. I use it for bread dough, noodle dough, pastry dough, focaccia, tortillas ... all sort of things.

But I don't treat it like a knife. When I cut something with a knife, I use a cutting board that protects the blade and keeps it sharper longer. When I use that pizza wheel, I'm probably cutting on the counter. Or on a metal baking sheet. Or on a pizza stone. Or just about anywhere except a cutting board.

So, I'm guessing that it's not quite as sharp as it used to be. In fact, I know it isn't.

So I gave the pizza wheel sharpener a whirl. It's basically two ceramic rods that the pizza wheel fits between as you roll it back and forth. For a smaller pizza wheel or a non-fluted pastry cutter, the back-and-forth is enough to get the whole circumference of the wheel. For my larger wheel, I had to make sure I was getting all the way around. Simple though - just roll back and forth.

The result? Well, I have to say that my pizza wheel was pretty dull to begin with, so it took some sharpening to get a decent edge. But now I have a pizza wheel that might actually be sharper than it was when it was new.

One-trick pony? Yes. But I can't think of another way to sharpen a pizza wheel or pastry cutter.

The product was supplied for the purpose of a review on Serious Eats; this was previously published on Serious Eats.
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