On Tue, 20 Dec 2005 15:35:57 -0500
Jenn Ridley > wrote:

> The proper way to use a stone is to leave it in the oven to get hot,
> and slide the prepared pizza onto it. Many people use a peel and
> cornmeal between the peel and the pizza dough. This is one way of
> doing it, by no means the only.
>
> The parchment is a way to get the pizza onto the stone. Put the
> parchment on a peel (or not, you can just use the parchment w/o a
> peel), place the pizza on the parchment, place the parchment on the
> stone, slip the parchment out from under the pizza.


The parchment paper will have some small effect on the texture of the
crust. The purpose of the stone is not strictly heat storage - it's porous
surface allows some water vapor to escape the dough. Maybe not so much with
the parchment paper.

I have seen some people advocate a preheated aluminum baking sheet, and
Lodge used to sell a cast iron slab for the job.

If it were only about dumping stored heat into the dough, the iron would
be ideal. I'm a big believer in cast iron cookware, but i don't think it
would make the same sort of crust i get off the fibrament slab. Some day i
need to try a deep dish pizza in my #9 Griswold skillet.

fwiw i prefer semolina for the job, and some people just use flour. You
walk a fine line with the hydration of the dough and the mess in your oven
in any case.

I find that it can help to have handy a long, thin, flexible instrument
to slide between the dough and the peel before attempting oven insertion.
An Ekco bread knife works well for this, as would one of those crazy
spatulas they use to apply frosting to large cakes.