Castanet

Another thread made me think of this.

What do people use at home for cooking a pizza?
Pizza pan with holes or a Pizza stone or nothing?

Pizza stone or bbq.

Wouldn't they burn on the BBQ?

Pizza pan and a VERY hot oven.

In the oven a pan with holes, on the bbq , a pizza stone

I use a special thing I bought that you can enter numbers
like 2508722222
Pizza turns out perfect every time!

I've got a pizza stone but I never really got the hang of using it. I usually use the pan with holes because we make thin crust pizza without gobs of toppings and you need to preheat the stone - now you've got this flimsy, uncooked pizza which you have to somehow get onto the hot stone. How do you do that? With a Pizza Peel?

With the pan you can top it on the pan and put it in a screaming hot oven and it's done in no time.

I tried that.

Once.

It was a sort-of pizza pretzel/loaf by the time I got it transferred mangled from one surface to the other.

Next time, I throw the dough on the screaming hot stone and then the three of us in the houshold will add toppings as damn fast as we can.

^^^^

LOL!

We usually make two pizzas at once. One on the stone, and one on the holy pan because that's what we have. It seems to work because one can still be cooking while we are eating the other.

We've been experimenting with this. So far, after many tasty but not so visually appealing attempts, we have found the best results came from preheating the stone (we use barbeque or hot oven), putting the dough on the stone and cooking for a couple of minutes. Then we flip the dough over, put on the sauce and less toppings than we would on a normal pan pizza. We've added asaigo to the dough recipe too - it adds to the flavour and crisps up the dough nicely. A sharp pizza peel or the largest spatula you have is a necessity. We have learned to make several smaller pizzas is better than trying an all-in-one, and also leaves more time for sipping on wine in between. :)

Bump...

Any more comments on Pizza Stones?

Preheat pizza stone for 30-45 minutes on the bottom oven rack - remove higher racks for ease of transferring pizza to the preheated stone. Sprinkle a fine layer of cornmeal on either a pizza peel or the back of a baking sheet - makes it easier to transfer pizza to oven.

Is it worth getting a stone or is it something that will sit in the cupboard?

My home made pizzas taste terrible but these guys seem to know how to do it:

A couple of tips if you want to make your own pizzas. Get a proper pizza paddle and a pizza stone for your oven. Bed Bath & Beyond sells a good stone for about $25 and the paddle will set you back another $12-$15.

To make a proper bread or pizza dough Canadian all purpose flour doesn't cut it. Go to bulk barn and buy a kilo of High Gluten Flour for about $10 and use 1/2 cup High Gluten per 2 cups All Purpose. Also, don't buy your yeast from the ripoff supermarkets. Once again Bulk Barn to the rescue selling fast acting yeast for about $6 a lb. Supermarket yeast works out to about $25 a lb in the little packets or jars. Finally pick up some coarse grind cornmeal as long as you're at bulk barn to use as a proper lubricant for your pizza dough.

You can learn how to use a pizza paddle and stone properly watching youtube videos and don't get discouraged if your first couple attempts are flops. It's a learned skill like anything else. Bake for about 12 minutes in a 450 F preheated oven and wait for the best pizzas you ever tasted...

Bon apetit