Baking Stones

[MartiniDave]

I've recently started into bread making, and have been told I ought to be using a baking stone. A quick google leads me to pizza stones at quite high prices.
Am I right in thinking it could really just be a lump of paving stone or similar?
Any baking guru's out there?

Dave

 

[Toddy]

I'm no guru but I have, and use, a pizza stone.
I bought mine from Lakeland's well over ten years ago,
It's very good for pizzas and other oven baked flat breads. It's heats up nan and the like very well. It also dries off oatcakes nicely, Scottish crispy ones that is.

Otherwise, it's hot from the bottom of anything cooked on it. Not good for biscuits, cakes or high risen scones. Bannocks and soda scones work on it though.

Would I buy another one if mine broke ?
Yes, but then I bake. If I didn't I'd think it kind of surplus really.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Hugo]

I found a good pizza stone at my local boot market for £1.00 looks new.
I have yet to try it.
After reading this thread I'd better try it out, bannocks you say toddy, yum yum.

 

[phill_ue]

Not sure about paving stones, it is concrete after all and could have air voids which will expand when heated, and then WHAMMO! Picking bits of exploded concrete out of your face probably isn't fun!

I wonder if there is stone that could be used instead though and is readily available. Might be worth a trip to the local stone merchants!

How about terracotta tiles?

 

[MartiniDave]

I was wondering about using a large bit of slate, maybe dry it off at a lower temperature first, to avoid that bond-villain facial look!

Thanks for the answers.

Dave

 

[John Fenna]

Have a word with your local Monumental Mason - they sometimes have bits of granite left over from gravestones etc.....

 

[LordRose]

Well seeing as I came into this section to talk about bread myself I think Il just add it into this conversation save starting another...

Il be going away soon for about a week in the wild and I would like to bake some bread before I go to be eaten on the journey as a kind of snack. Aside from either making it sweet or savory I have a question about how long bread lasts which is made without any yeast?

 

[Toddy]

Do you mean no raising agent or just no yeast ?

If it's the former, then soda bread is very good and it lasts in cold weather when well wrapped up to stop it drying out for three or four days. Good ordinary bread lasts a week these days.
Thing is, if you're camping, why not just bake when you're on site, then it's fresh It doesn't need to be complicated stuff.
Bannock's a staple when out, but fast rise yeasts work well so long as you can keep their dough warm.

If you mean no raising agent, you'd be better off with oatcakes or tortillas, at least they're tasty. Hard tack lasts for years but it's only for the desperate methinks.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Revsharky]

Baking stone is the biz! worth the money... if greased well never needs washing up. One problemo... you won't be trecking with it as its HEAVY!

 

[galopede]

When I was a lad years ago in Cardiff, every family had a bakestone, usually used for making "bakestones", Welsh cakes. Lovely when still warm. Only useful as door stops or as replacements for clay pigeons when cold.

All Welsh bakestones were steel plates. I think we'd got ours from a neighbour who worked at the steelworks. They used to cast them in the lunch breaks to make a bit of beer money!

Gareth

 

[johnnytheboy]

I have seen a few bqs where a slab was used as the base for the fire to burn on, they looked fine, so I would imagine they would be ok for doing pizza, shame your not round my way I could give you as many slabs as you could carry to experiment.

 

[Toddy]

When I was a lad years ago in Cardiff, every family had a bakestone, usually used for making "bakestones", Welsh cakes. Lovely when still warm. Only useful as door stops or as replacements for clay pigeons when cold.

All Welsh bakestones were steel plates. I think we'd got ours from a neighbour who worked at the steelworks. They used to cast them in the lunch breaks to make a bit of beer money!

Gareth

Ah, no, this is a different kind, it's a ceramic stoneware disc.
What you're describing we call a girdle........and before anyone starts sniggering I've got one that has girdle cast into the bottom of it, and it says made in England too

cheers,
Toddy

 

[forestwalker]

Mine is soapstone and made in Finland. Quite nice, no idea what it cost since it was a gift.

 

[forestwalker]

As to types of bread; I find that sourdough bread lasts better than bread baked with yeast. For the ultimate long lasting bread make crisp bread (thin crip bread with lots of thyme?). Or bake the Finnish speciality of slow oven bread; basically an all rye sourdough bread, cold risen and baked in a fairly cold oven. Looks like a chunk of bog oak, hard enough to kill your enemies, but very, very nice if you like this kind of bread. The rugged nature means that you can throw it into a pack and never have to worry about it turning into crumbles.

 

[featherstick]

A baking stone won't make much difference if you are baking bread in tins. It'll help a little for freeform loaves, but will really be worth it for thin-crust pizza, where the idea is to cook the base quickly and more or less wilt/melt the topping at the same time so one has a lovely crisp base. It mimics the action of the stone oven that the best pizzerias use.

 

[dasy2k1]

according to scripture matzo will last long enough to walk from Egypt to Jerusalem (provided you dont get it wet when you pass though the red sea)

 

[draftjim]

forget bread research pemmican it will keep you ribs off your backbone for a year

 

[MartiniDave]

Maybe Jim, but it wont go with a nice bit of cheddar for my sunday tea, will it?