Pizza Stones

Home-made pizza tastes infinitely better when baked on a pizza stone. These terra cotta tiles help keep the bottom crust crisp rather than the soggy crust one gets from a pizza pan. They're available at better cookware stores in a variety of price ranges. The cheap ones work just as well as the more expensive ones, so save your money.

Hint:
With the stone you will also need a paddle to get the pizza to the hot stone and back. Long handled paddles are much easier to use then the more common short handled paddles.

Use:
Place stone in middle of oven and heat to 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Sprinkle stone with corn meal. Sprinkle paddle generously with corn meal and place pizza dough on paddle before adding toppings. Add pizza toppings. Use quick jerking motions to transport pizza from paddle to stone. If you are not careful at this point or you can end up with your pizza at bottom of the oven or on the floor. Use paddle to remove pizza when crust is browned and cheese is bubbly. do not try to remove stone from oven until cool.

Stone Care:

• Never use soap on the stone
• Never move to a hot surface when stone is cold and vise versa.
• Season the stone with olive oil after each cleaning