Good!!! Tips On How To Use A Pizza Stone

Tips On How To Use A Pizza Stone - Pizza stones are great for cooking a variety of foods including pizza, but without proper care, it's easy to break or damage these stones. If you're trying to learn how to use a pizza stone, follow these tips for both use and maintenance of the stone.

Preheating the Stone

Depending on where you purchase your pizza stone, you may not need to preheat it. However, it will not damage the stone and is a good idea. The best way to preheat your pizza stone is to put the room-temperature stone into the oven and preheat it. Then, remove the stone and place the pizza or other food you're cooking on the stone. Return the stove to the oven and cook according to the recipe.

If you're worried about cracking the stone, you can avoid this by making sure that the stone doesn't change temperatures rapidly. If you put a cold pizza stone in a hot oven, the high temperature change can cause the stone to crack. Similarly, if you take a stone from the oven and put it into cold water, this also causes stress on the stone. Avoid any rapid changes to keep the stone intact.

Caring for Your Pizza Stone

You can cook a variety of foods on your pizza stone including pizza, biscuits, breads, and cookies as well as many others. It's rare for foods to stick to a pizza stone, but you should season the stone using a small amount of oil. When you first use the stone, cover the cooking surface with a small amount of vegetable oil. You can repeat this step every few times that you use the stone. Similar to cast iron, a light layer of oil seasons the stone and it will take on a deep brown tone over time. You do not have to cover the stone with oil on every use, but regularly seasoning helps to avoid sticking.

Cleaning Your Pizza Stone

It may help to think of your pizza stone as a sponge. It has a somewhat porous nature and will soak up what's baked on it. Pizza stones are actually molded sand which has been compacted under high pressure. For this reason, it's actually not recommended that you clean the stone with soap and water. The soap and anything else in the dish water goes into the stone. There are two basic ways to clean your pizza stone.

One of the first ways is to bake the stone at a high temperature, around 425 degrees, for a few minutes to bake off any of the food that's stuck on the stone. After baking, scrape off the hardened food particles and season the stone. It's ready to be used again. The second method involves submerging the stone in warm, plain water for about 20 minutes. This will work to saturate the stone in water. After soaking, lightly scrub the stone to remove any food particles and then place on the counter to dry overnight. Remember to season the stone before using.

Your baking stone can last for years if you take proper care of it, so make sure that you're following these steps!

Source: ArticlesBase.com, Thanks to Victor Alba