Finally the parcel containing my new pizza stone arrived! If you like baking as much as I do, one of these thick terracotta slabs is a really handy thing to have. They're pre-heated in the oven and, while baking bread, give off a nice bottom heat, resembling to a certain extent a brick oven.
According to most baking books, there are few materials that one could use as baking "floors" and I went through quite a few of them. I started baking using unglazed tiles as "standing" layer for my breads, but they moved too much around and I found that very wet dough tended to seep between them. I then bought my first pizza stone which, I didn't notice at first, had a little and very thin crack which soon became a big one and split the stone in two pieces :-(. Still, those few times I baked with it were enough to convert me to pizza stone. It took me a while to find a new one. In the meanwhile I used a baking sheet, turned upside down. This is quite OK. actually much better than I thought, and all the breads that appeared on this page were baked this way. Now I finally found someone selling pizza stones in Germany. Even better, it came with a handy wooden peel. Can't wait to try this out!!
Ciao Alberto,
How do you like this stone? Would you buy it again? How long does it take to get hot? Do you just use the bottom heating element? I some times lay a bit of wood over the lower heating element to make some smoke like a wood oven and it works pretty well.
Best, Ed
Posted by: SWISS_CHEF | July 20, 2005 at 04:47 PM
ed,
I guess I don't really need to answer since we talked about it on last week end, but just in case and for anyone who might be interested in the same questions:
-I use top and bottm heating (I have no other option unfortunately). A pizza oven would also have heat from top and bottom at the same time.
- Takes about 40-60 minutes to heat the stone up.
-I'd definitely buy it again but probably a bigger one (especially if I had a large enough oven). This one is only enough for a pizza at a a time.
Posted by: Alberto | July 25, 2005 at 03:45 PM
Ciao Alberto,
In the meantime I ran across a 40x40 cm piece of granite at a do it yourself store for €4.50 it is quite thick and seems to make an excellent pizza.
See picture here>>> http://www.freeimagelibrary.com/images/SWISSCHEF/dscf0007.jpg
Posted by: SWISS_CHEF | July 27, 2005 at 10:02 AM