What's the best stone fr a bakestone?

[tombear]

Hi folks
i have a really nice cast iron bakestone/girdle but I fancy trying a stone one, maybe with a upturned clay pot for baking bread. As any one experience of using a stone for baking on, especially if there's any types to avoid.

ATB

Tom

 

[British Red]

I use a piece of marble. It was a pastry board I ordered - it turned up chipped and I rang the firm - they gave me a refund and told me to chuck it. I ground it off instead and bake on it instead

I starting using it after reading the River Cottage bread book - it works well. They suggest even a paving slab works - or an offcut of granite from a kitchen worktop - even talk to a guy who makes gravestones....

 

[Toddy]

Granite's pretty good. You can buy nice sized (about the size of an oven tray) ones in the home discount places just now, they're being sold as 'worktop savers'. Heck of a weight to them, and they're about 15 to 20mm thick.

Slate was much used in the past, but you need to make sure it's 'sound' slate, no airpockets, no hidden cracks full of water, iimmc.

That seems to be the rule of thumb on them.

Loads of bits of marble around too though. Old cheese cutting marble discs maybe ?

Interesting topic; I keep saying we ought to do more with stone.

atb,
Mary

 

[tombear]

Cheers folks, it just happens we are on gritstone here and they used to quarry slates all round about

http://www.stoneroof.org.uk/rossen.html

would that be suitable?

Following that lead I poked about the net and they used to quarry bakestones in the Rossendale. Baxenden, just along the valley, was originally Bakestondene and they were selling "bacstones" in Accrington from here in 1341/42.

ATB

Tom

 

[British Red]

You pretty much have to try and get a local one there Tom - If you can get a bit, it would be easy enough to dress with a diamond disc on a modern angle grinder.

 

[Toddy]

I don't think I ever did get around to putting the photos up....and no idea where I have stored them either but....stone grinds stone very tidily indeed.

I made round flat stones from river washed chunks of sandstone simply by rubbing them around and around on a concrete paving slab. I put holes through them by using a wooden spindle and a bow. The spindle picks up bits of grit and it's the grit that burrs the hole through the stone.
Patrick McGlinchey makes some beautiful weighted spindle drills this way I just made loom weights
The principle sound though, stone wears away stone very effectively

M

 

[tombear]

If I can track down where the quarry was, what sort of thickness should I be aiming for?

i found this quite interesting

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/Baxendell_family_history/Bakestones.htm

not the same area but a insight ino th industry.

Now to bed as herself will be dragging me off to a carboot at oh god hundred later today...

atb

tom

 

[British Red]

My marble is 1/2" or so - don't go very thin - but it has to heat up so not too massive

 

[Toddy]

My ceramic one (look up pizza stone) is about a cm thick. I don't think I'd go much above the half inch either if given any choice.
Thing is that they heat slow and then maintain the heat. They're the kind of baking that lets you cook long and slow as they cool down. Meringues are classic example, but so are Scottish style oatcakes, cooked hot and then 'dried' into crispness as the stone cools. I believe that the tortilla chips would do the same from corn meal.

atb,
M

 

[cockney greg]

Would a decent-sized piece of terracotta work?

 

[Toddy]

It should do; my bakestone (which cost a great deal more than this nearly twenty years ago when I bought it ) is just made from white clay. With use the surface is now dark brown while the underside is still creamy white.
Terracotta can be absorbant though, so maybe pay heed to the careful oiling ?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ProCook-Pizza-Stone-38cm-15in/dp/B0026OND1G

Mary

 

[British Red]

I think a large, polished ceramic floor or wall tile - or a marble, slate, york stone type one might be the cheapest way to improvise one. Terracotta would work on bread - but I might be tempted to soak it in water first so that it steams - like a chicken brick - you need your oven saturated with water to make proper bread (I have a baking tray with an inch of water in at the bottom of my oven when doing bread)

 

[John Fenna]

The traditional Welsh Bakestone is ...cast iron!

 

[Duggie Bravo]

My mum's bake stone is cast iron boiler plate! Alledgedly it's from an old steam engine. My wife's is cast iron, but only 1/4 inch thick


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Toddy]

We had a real confusion a couple of years ago when the topic of bakestones first came up.
I (and most of the Scots and some Northern English) call my cast iron one a girdle. A griddle to us is the ridged surface plate thing for steaks and bacon.
A bakestone to us is a stone used in the oven, like my pizza stone one.

To the Welsh though, Pete Williams says his missus's bakestone, is the same thing as my cast iron girdle, but the old ones were slate.
TomBear calls a stone (literally, the village that used to produce them at least from the 14th century is just along the way from where he lives) one a bakestone though.

The Southern English seem to think we're all nuts and it's an iron gridle and a ceramic or marble or granite bakestone or ovenstone.

Confused ?
Aye, well, kind of

Toddy....who's other half is having his coffee with raisin bannocks fresh off the girdle

 

[British Red]

Toddy....who's other half is having his coffee with raisin bannocks fresh off the girdle

And who are we to argue with a man who likes to consume baked goods perched on lingerie?

 

[Huon]

I think a large, polished ceramic floor or wall tile - or a marble, slate, york stone type one might be the cheapest way to improvise one. Terracotta would work on bread - but I might be tempted to soak it in water first so that it steams - like a chicken brick - you need your oven saturated with water to make proper bread (I have a baking tray with an inch of water in at the bottom of my oven when doing bread)

Have you tried this BR?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=0

 

[Toddy]

And who are we to argue with a man who likes to consume baked goods perched on lingerie?

I have a cast aluminium one too....and on the bottom it has embossed Girdle, Made in England

M

 

[Huon]

I have a cast aluminium one too....and on the bottom it has embossed Girdle, Made in England

M

I wouldn't argue with a woman with a cast iron or cast aluminium girdle either

 

[tombear]

Er, when Toddys 15 inch iron girdle proved too big she gave it to me and I've been using it most weeks since then.....