Making your own pizza is such a fun and adventurous experience. But aside from the thrill, whether you are at your first attempt or you’ve been there before, you want it to look as perfect as possible.
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Using a pizza stone takes you one step closer to that perfection. But what if there’s none available? Don’t fret. We’ve got an excellent alternative for you.
What’s the Perfect Pizza?
The “perfect pizza” means different things to different people. But let’s focus on the elements most of us will agree on. First, most people want their pizzas crispy at the base, yet delicate at the top.
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Basically, for the toppings, they should be well-cooked and backed by well-melted cheese. Not forgetting, the crust should be light and hold up the toppings with the skill of an experienced waiter.
There’s No Good Pizza Without a Good Crust
Arguably, the crust is the most important pizza ingredient. It’s true. You can have sumptuous sauce and amazing cheese, yet a subpar crust can ruin the party.
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Think of the crust as the foundation of a building. That means everything is on the verge of collapse if you don’t get it right. So, we advise that you focus on achieving that restaurant-standard crust in your homemade pizza.
How Do We Make an Amazing Crust?
There are numerous recipes for making a pizza crust. But they all have some ingredients in common such as flour, yeast, sugar, oil, and salt. Moving beyond the edible components, there’s one tool that pizza makers love to use. It’s the pizza stone.
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Indeed, pizza stones are a common feature in the pizza-making process, and for good reason too. They play a crucial role in bringing out the best crusts.
What Role Does a Pizza Stone Play?
Whenever you see a pizza crust of high quality, there’s a good chance that these pieces of flat clay or ceramic called pizza stones played a major role. They’ve since become the traditional surfaces for the pizza flour base.
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The stones ensure that your pizza bakes with more heat than your ovens can produce on their own. That’s because they soak up and accumulate heat which they pass on to the dough to create the crusty texture.
How to Get a Pizza Stone
If you plan on making homemade pizza anytime soon and aren’t sure how to get quality pizza stones, we’ve got some advice that could help. First, look for stones from a well-known manufacturer.
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Also, watch out for the shape that will be suitable for your oven. There are rectangular and circular-shaped pizza stones. Similarly, you can choose between the brightly colored ones and the simple slates.
No Pizza Stone? No Problem
But what if you don’t have a pizza stone yet? No problem. You can get pizza crusts that are equally as great without pizza stones.
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While the stones are the popular choice, we’ve got a worthy alternative for you – baking sheets. We know what you’re thinking, but hear us out. Baking sheets are in no way an inferior option or an afterthought. Let’s show you why.
Baking Sheets Are So Underrated
Baking sheets could easily win the award for the most unacknowledged kitchen equipment. That’s because bakers usually only remember them when it’s time to make cookies.
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If you want to produce good pizzas with baking sheets all you need is a little bit of extra knowledge and you are good to go. Just make sure to go for an aluminum one that’s heavy and light-colored to achieve a nice crisp and uniform browning.
How to Make Fine Pizza Crusts With Baking Sheets
Baking sheets produce great pizza when they are flipped over. After you invert your sheet, slide it into the lowest layer of your oven. Afterward, preheat it to the highest available temperature for 30 minutes so it has enough time to soak in the heat.
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When it’s time, grease your pan to prevent the dough from sticking to it. After that, place your pizza alongside its toppings and allow the sheet 10 minutes to do an amazing job.
Baking Sheets Provide an Edge
Baking sheets hold several advantages over the pizza stone. One of them is that it is much lighter and easier to use. Of course, as we’ve mentioned already, the heavier sheets produce better results, but even those are lighter to move around than the stones.
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Granted, the difference in weight might not mean much if you are making pizza for a few people. But when you intend to make multiple pieces, that’s when you begin to appreciate the need for lightness.
You Will Spend Less Time With Baking Sheets
Baking sheets are also easier to clean up than pizza stones. If you aren’t in the mood to dispense extra energy tidying up after making a homemade pizza, you will be glad you used a sheet instead.
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Pizza stones can hardly be cleaned without lots of scraping and scrubbing. Plus, it keeps you much longer in the kitchen. Interestingly, this is the reason many pizza shop owners have switched from stones to sheets.
Baking Sheets Will Make Your Pocket Happy
We definitely won’t be ending this piece without talking about one of the most obvious advantages of baking sheets. That is, it is considerably less expensive to use than the pizza stone.
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It’s not a surprise given the type of materials pizza stones are made of. So, considering that you can make quality pizzas with sheets as equally as you can with stones, saving up those extra bucks to stick with your baking sheets is a pretty wise decision.
