Time To Get Stoned
I'm always talking about the importance
of having a good pizza stone if you want to make good pizza at home.
But I don't think I've ever gotten into the specifics of what
constitutes a good pizza stone, nor have I ever addressed how to take
care of one once you've got it. Well, let's fix that.
First, let's talk about why you need
one. The world's best pizza comes out of wood-burning brick or stone
ovens. The reason is because nothing retains
and distributes heat like a brick or stone oven, also called a masonry
oven. Bakers and cooks figured that out back at the dawn of
civilization, and even with all our technological upgrades, nothing
has come along that does the job better. As a matter of fact, one of
the things mandated by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana
for making a true Neapolitan pizza is a wood-burning masonry oven. It
doesn't get any more official than that.
I don't have one. And, personally, I
don't have a couple thousand bucks to invest in one. Furthermore, I
don't posses the “DIY” handyman talent it takes to build one. So
having a pizza stone in my conventional oven is the next best thing.
Sometimes also referred to as a “baking
stone,” a pizza stone is essentially a thin, flat slab of stone or
ceramic material designed to fit in your oven. They even make small
ones that work in countertop or “toaster” ovens. Since most
people think of pizza as being round, most manufacturers tend to make
round pizza stones. But you can buy square or rectangular stones that
cover more surface area inside your oven. Whatever the shape, the
purpose of the stone is twofold: it absorbs and distributes heat
evenly, eliminating hot spots and allowing for more uniform baking.
And, due to its porous nature, it helps wick away moisture,
resulting in a crisper crust.
When it comes to pizza stones, quality
counts. The cheaper and flimsier the stone, the poorer the
performance. And the likelier you are to throw the thing in the
trash, provided it doesn't break into three or four pieces the first
time you use it. If you're going to get one, get a good one.
Forno Bravo, one of the companies that
makes backyard brick ovens, also markets a pizza stone that measures
a whopping 3/4-inch thick. That's a slab of rock! They claim it heats
faster and retains heat better. It comes with a ten-year warranty and
they'll sell you as many as you want for fifty or sixty bucks each.
http://www.fornobravo.com/pizza-stone
The good folks up in Vermont at King
Arthur Flour have a stone that sells for about the same price. It
comes in a rectangular shape and it's “only” 1/2-inch thick, but
they claim the manufacturer of their product “holds the original
patent for 'pizza stone'.” And it comes with a lifetime warranty.
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/pizza-baking-stone
Williams-Sonoma has a rectangular stone
that is also 1/2-inch thick. Made of cordierite ceramic, it sells for
about fifty bucks. Nothing on the website about a warranty, but you
can check it out here:
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/baking-and-pizza-stone
The stone that has lived in my oven for
about fifteen years is a Pampered Chef product. It was a gift from my
mother, who thought the stone I already had had gotten pretty ugly.
(She was right.) My Pampered Chef stone is made of natural clay. It's
round and big enough to accommodate a 14” pizza with a little room
to spare. At just under 1/2-inch, it's not as thick as those listed
above, but it's held up well and done the job for a long, long time.
Unfortunately, they appear to have replaced it in the current catalog
with something that has built-in handles and is advertised as being
“virtually nonporous.” But you can still get one of the old ones
like mine through Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Pampered-Chef-Large-Pizza-Stoneware/dp/B004MJDOVC
Now, you can buy pizza stones at the
big box stores for about ten or twenty bucks. Remember: “you get
what you pay for.” The most common complaint about the low-price
stones is that they break the first time you use them. When you use a
pizza stone, if you're doing it right, you're cranking your oven up
as high as it will go – 500 to 550 degrees. Cheap stones can't take
the heat and they crack.
Of course, quality and price aside,
cracking can also be the result of improper handling. A lot of people
think that “stone” and “indestructible” are synonymous, and
that's not the case with a pizza stone. Pizza “stones” are
actually closer in composition to clay or ceramic tiles, and you know
what happens if you drop one of those. If you don't know, ask my
brother-in-law, who dropped a whole case of them once. It wasn't
pretty. Well.....it was pretty in a mosaic sort of way, but I
digress. Bottom line: don't drop your pizza stone or fling it around
carelessly.....unless you want a mosaic tile backsplash in your
kitchen.
Probably the worst thing you can do to
your pizza stone is wash it. I don't think anybody is stupid enough
to try putting one in the dishwasher........I hope. But you can't
hand wash them, either. At least not with soapy water. Pizza stones
are porous and they absorb moisture and oil and such. This property
helps in “seasoning” the surface of the stone, much like cast
iron cookware is seasoned by proper use. The seasoning actually helps
impart a little flavor to food cooked on the stone's surface. And if
you've doused your stone in Dawn, guess what your next pizza is going
to taste like?
You can use plain water on the surface
of your stone, but don't immerse it in the sink. Remember......
porous.......absorbs water. And if it gets waterlogged and you stick
it in a hot oven, steam develops and.......crack!
But it's okay to
use a damp cloth to wipe off anything that accumulates on the surface
of the stone. And, by the way, it's perfectly fine and normal for
your stone to get grungy-looking after you've been using it for
awhile. Darkening and staining are part of the seasoning process.
Don't bust an elbow trying to scrub it all off.
But if you do have to scrub something
off – some burned-on cheese or something – you can use a stiff
brush or a plastic scraper for the job. You can even use medium-grit
sandpaper if you go easy with it. Scrape the surface as clean as you
can and then use a damp cloth to wipe it down.
And, by all means, always wait until
your stone has cooled completely before you try to do anything to
clean it. A super hot stone is a super fragile stone, much more
likely to fracture than one that is cool. It's also more prone to
thermal shock, which is why you should leave it in the oven to cool
on its own rather than pulling it out and setting it on a countertop
or something. If you've ever had a
glass baking dish explode from thermal shock, you won't want to
repeat the experience with a clay or ceramic stone.
In fact, it's perfectly okay to just
leave your stone in the oven 24/7. Mine never comes out unless I have
a specific reason to remove it. Although leaving a baking stone in
the oven will make the oven take a little longer to heat up – the
stone absorbs heat – it will also even out the heating in your
oven, making everything you cook in there cook a little better.
But if you have a self-cleaning oven,
always remove the stone before hitting the self-cleaning cycle. The
cleaning cycle gets really hot
– as high as 900 degrees. Even a high quality stone may crack under
that kind of heat. I've seen comments from people who say they
self-clean their stones all the time. Fine and dandy. Most
manufacturers advise against it and I'd rather err on the side of
caution than drop another fifty or sixty bucks on a new stone.
Word of caution
regarding leaving your stone in the oven: don't put anything really
heavy on it. If you're baking a casserole in that fifteen pound Le
Creuset ceramic-coated Dutch oven of yours, it's not a good idea to
set the pot on the stone. Way too heavy, especially after the stone
heats up. That's one of those cases where I'd take the stone out if I
needed the space.
Back to the subject
of thermal shock, you shouldn't put a cold stone in a hot oven. If
you've already preheated your oven and then remembered the stone,
forget it. For one thing, the stone has to be hot in order for it to
do any good, and if you've already preheated your oven, the stone
will take another forty-five minutes to an hour to come to proper
temperature. Either do without or turn the oven off and start over
with the stone in place inside the cold oven. A cold stone in a hot
oven is worthless and while I can't say for sure that the stone will
crack if you put it in cold, why take the chance?
Now, there are some
fancy-schmansy new stones on the market that are all glazed and
coated and dishwasher safe and all that stuff. Meh. Give me my plain,
old-fashioned, porous, unglazed clay or ceramic stone any day. That's
what I've been using for about twenty years and what other bakers and
cooks have been using for about twenty centuries and it's good enough
for me.
One final thought
on the topic of pizza stones: cheap, easily replaceable tiles from
your local hardware store. A lot of cheap bast......er........thrifty
folks........go down to Lowes or Home Depot and drop three or four
dollars on a bunch of plain, unglazed quarry tiles, which they then
use to line the bottom of their ovens in lieu of expensive pizza
stones. And if an occasional tile breaks – which it will – hey, no
biggie! Just replace it with another fifty-cent tile. I have
no objections to this concept. Well.......one or two. First and
foremost of which is the presence of lead in some of these cheap
tiles. Another thing to consider is consistency; not all tiles are
created equal. And finally, there's convenience. As I have noted, I
leave my stone unturned. It never leaves my oven unless something
requires me to move it. And when I need to move it, I just take it
out of the oven. I don't have to mess with four or six or eight or
however many individual pieces, which I then have to replace
afterward. And since I often tote my stone with me when I go off
cooking at other people's houses – people who are likely to be
stone-less – it's easier to bag up one big slab of tile than it is
to carry around ten little ones. But that's just me.
What are you
waiting for? Isn't it time you got stoned? Invest in a good quality
pizza/baking stone, treat it well, and it will help you turn out
amazing pizza, bread, and other baked goods for many years to come.
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