The bread in the image above is Kalamata Black Olive Bread

In order to get those awesome artisan breads and pizza crusts you have to have a pizza baking stone of some type in your oven.

Why?

Simply because the baking stone makes for a far superior crust. It is the only way to get the crust right.

Personally, I have plans to construct an outdoor, brick bread oven..oh yeah I do! Probably not this summer but definitely by next summer…mmmm. They are not that hard to do as long as you are careful and use fire proof brick. But I digress…

If you are a serious bread or pizza maker then eventually you are going to want to try baking on these stones. They are expensive! Most of the time they are made for pizza and they are round, which does not work great if you are trying to bake 3 loaves of bread.

You can also run to your nearest Home Depot or Lowes and pick up unglazed quarry tiles. They are very inexpensive and they are square so you can cover an entire rack, or both racks for that matter, with them. I have heard of some concern about lead in them but the lead would be contained in the glaze and these are UNglazed. I do suggest before you use them that you buy a lead test kit and check one of them if you are concerned. The tiles, depending on size, are less the $2 each.

Before you use the tiles wash them with either plain water of a baking soda solution. You are going to cover all but a couple of inches of your rack with the tiles and then you can just leave them in there.Before baking your bread you will preheat the oven to like 450 or so with the tiles in, slide the bread onto the heated tiles (no pans) and bake as usual. Obviously if you are making regular loaves in glass pans, or casseroles in ceramic dishes, you need to take the tiles out first.

Below are some examples of stones I found on Amazon. It was the easiest way to get images for you to look at. As you can see they are very expensive, although they are graded for food so you would not have to have even the slightest concern for lead.

Once you start using them and get used to it you will probably not go back to bread loaves made in a pan again…Nope. You will be making bread in baguettes, boules, and cloche. You will be like a mad scientist creating bubbling vats of sourdough…I am telling ya, it’s addictive!

Image:Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights