Make awesome bread and pizza with this stone
Written: May 02 '04
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Pros: Holds heat, versatile, large (but not too large to fit in oven).
Cons: Heavy, gets ugly fast (but still makes great food).
The Bottom Line: If you want a really crispy crust for you pizza, you need a pizza stone, and this is a great place to start.
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| runningdan's Full Review: Kitchen Supply Co. Pizza And Baking Stone (14x16) ... |
I love pizza, but a few years ago I decided to start eating healthier. That means I try to avoid the very cheesy (yet so tasty) pizzas from a pizzeria. I am personally not a huge fan of cheese; I like it alright, but can easily enough do without it. Since I am currently in college, and will be moving off campus next year, I bought a few things for the kitchen (I will need to cook my own food now). One of the things I bought was this pizza stone. I can make pizza my way, with as much or as little cheese as I want, and it always turns out great on this pizza stone. I am very happy that I decided to buy this pizza stone, and if it does break, I will go buy another one in a heartbeat.
What this stone does well.
If you’ve ever tried to get a really crispy bottom crust on your pizzas or breads, but just can’t seem to do it, it probably isn’t your fault as much as it is your cookie sheets fault. The only way to get that really nice pizzeria crust is through a pizza stone.
This pizza stone is hot. If you have never tried cooking bread or pizza on a pizza stone before, it is amazing what kind of results you can get. The stone retains heat very well, and this stone is porous, so it almost sucks water right out of the surface of whatever you are baking on it. Once it preheats (which can take a little while), almost any bread product you put on this will taste great, with a bottom crust unlike anything that came out of your oven on a cookie sheet.
This pizza stone is a good size for a residential oven. Being 14” x 16”, it should fit in almost any residential oven on the market. If you have an exceptionally small oven, just measure it before you order one of these stones. This size can easily fit one pizza, two loaves of bread, or half a dozen bagels without overcrowding. If you think you may want to cook more than one pizza at a time, pick up two stones (at $25 dollars a stone, it won’t break the bank).
Pizza stones are very versatile. I have used mine multiple times for pizza, loaves, or bagels. Just toss a bit of cornmeal onto the stone and slide whatever bread you want to bake onto this stone (a pizza peel might be helpful for this, or you could use a cookie sheet to slide your bread in). In 10 or 15 minutes, the bread will be done, and almost never sticks (my bagels have a tendency to stick a little because of being boiled beforehand, but they still come off fairly well). The stone retains heat so well that it will be ready for your next pizza or loaves right after the first batch comes off.
What this stone doesn’t do well.
There are a few things that you need to take into consideration when baking on a pizza stone.
This thing takes a while to warm up. Since I usually cook my pizzas at somewhere between 450 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit, it takes about an hour or so before the pizza stone warms up all the way, once it’s hot though, it will stay hot for a long time.
This thing gets very ugly very fast. Always cooking at such high temperatures means that if a piece of cheese or anything sugary falls onto this stone, it will be burned solid in a matter of seconds. Also, you should not use soap when cleaning this stone because the pores will pick up the taste of the soap, and your pizza crust will start tasting like soap. I use a dough scraper to get any burned on particles off the stone, then wipe it down with water and that is it. The stone gets so hot before you use it each time that anything that is living or once lived in it will be easily killed.
This stone is heavy, and can break if dropped. I have not had a problem with the weight or durability of this stone, but I can see how it could be quite a chore to get this into your oven or over to the sink if you have weak wrists.
How I use my pizza stone.
Since I have never really had any trouble using my pizza stone, I will give you a short description of how I use it.
1. First I prepare my dough. For pizza dough I use a simple recipe that I found on www.foodtv.com that consists of flour, water, yeast, a little oil, and a little sugar and salt (to feed and control the yeast). Just like any other bread dough, I combine the ingredients, knead them for about 10 min., then this dough needs to rise for about an hour.
2. Just after I set the dough aside to rise, I put the pizza stone in the oven and start it preheating at 500 degrees Fahrenheit. It will take the entire hour that the dough needs to rise before the stone will heat up all the way to 500 degrees.
3. After the dough has risen for an hour, and doubled in size, I punch down the dough and split the dough into as many equal parts as I want pizzas (my recipe usually makes 3 medium pizzas).
4. While keeping the dough that’s not in use covered, I stretch the dough by hand on a floured wooden cutting board, place it on a peel, place and place my desired toppings on the dough.
5. I then sprinkle a little cornmeal on the pizza stone, make sure that the pizza isn’t sticking to the peel, and slide the pizza into the oven.
6. The pizza will be done in about 10 minutes, repeat these steps until you are out of dough.
Conclusions.
I am very pleased with this pizza stone. If you have tried your hand at making homemade pizza, but have never been satisfied with the crispiness of your crust, you should give a pizza stone a try, just remember it takes a little planning because the stone takes a while to heat up. If you don’t mind having an ugly pizza stone, and want to make the best homemade pizzas you’ve ever made, then you should definitely get a pizza stone, and this would be a good choice.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 25
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Epinions.com ID:
runningdan
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Reviews written: 50
Trusted by: 3 members
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