Daughters gave me a pizza/baking stone for Christmas and it did not
bring cleaning instructions. The instructions did say to "cure" it by
bringing it to 450 degrees F several times and to coat it with oil
during the curing process. Well, I finally made my first pizza
yesterday and reheated the rest a short time ago. The problem now is
that I am having a heck of time trying to take out some burnt cheese.
Is there an easy way or a proper way to remove the burnt cheese from
the stone without having to scratch it?

Many thanks in advance,

Ray
Austin, TX
===

I'd recommend using parchment paper on top of the stone. You'll get
the same benefits the stone brings but a cheesed-up piece of paper to
crumple and toss instead of a crusty stone to clean. Kev

"Ray S. & Nayda Katzaman" > wrote

> yesterday and reheated the rest a short time ago. The problem now is
> that I am having a heck of time trying to take out some burnt cheese.
> Is there an easy way or a proper way to remove the burnt cheese from
> the stone without having to scratch it?

My pizza stone came with a plastic scrapy thing, perhaps you
could use a plastic spatula. I'm not sure how cheese is getting
on your stone, I guess we make pizzas differently because it
doesn't happen to me despite my liking for thin crust.

At any rate, don't bother trying to keep the thing looking pretty,
you won't win that one. Try to scrape it, if you do, while the
stone is still warm.

nancy

Bob Myers wrote:
Re-heating pizza is one of the main reasons God gave
> us microwave ovens...:-)

I disagree.

The nuke turns pizza crust into a soggy wet dishsponge! I like to heat
my pizza in the toasterr oven; it gets hot in 5 minutes in the small
space.

The secret to grest NY style crust is the double bake...think about it.
NY pizza places make their pies, then they sit until you order a slice.
The slice goes into the hot pizza oven and the crust gets that good
crispiness so you can fold it neatly in half. Yum!

"Ray S. & Nayda Katzaman" > wrote in message
...
> Daughters gave me a pizza/baking stone for Christmas and it did not
> bring cleaning instructions. The instructions did say to "cure" it by
> bringing it to 450 degrees F several times and to coat it with oil
> during the curing process. Well, I finally made my first pizza
> yesterday and reheated the rest a short time ago. The problem now is
> that I am having a heck of time trying to take out some burnt cheese.
> Is there an easy way or a proper way to remove the burnt cheese from
> the stone without having to scratch it?

I bake my pizzas on a stone at at least 475 deg. F; leave the
stone in, sans pizza, for a while at such temperatures (or even
leave the thing in, if your racks will stand it, during an oven clean
cycle) and burnt anything - cheese, crust, sauce - will become
charcoal, and easily scraped/brushed off. The stone is NOT going
to look pretty after a few uses, anyway. It is going to be dark,
even black, and that's a GOOD thing.

RE-heating pizza is not a job for a stone, though; presumably,
the crust is already nicely browned, and doesn't need any more
of THAT. Re-heating pizza is one of the main reasons God gave
us microwave ovens...:-)

Bob M.

If it's a real stone, .75 inches thick, or almost, leave it in the oven, and
don't take it out to clean it. Even if it is one of those thin stones,
scrape the debris off with a metal spatula; leave it alone after that. I
have done that with the same stone for 30 years.
Rules:
Heat the stone for 1 hour before using it.
Bake pizza at at least 500F, or even 550F, for 6-7 minutes. Use an oven
thermometer.
Dust paddle with flour, not cornmeal, and slide pizza on stone.
Spray inside of oven with H20 several times during the first two minutes of
baking, as in a bread oven. Bread ovens are moist. This crisps the crust.
The best of pizza to you. No matter what you do, the stone will change your
lives.
Kent

"Ray S. & Nayda Katzaman" > wrote in message
...
> Daughters gave me a pizza/baking stone for Christmas and it did not
> bring cleaning instructions. The instructions did say to "cure" it by
> bringing it to 450 degrees F several times and to coat it with oil
> during the curing process. Well, I finally made my first pizza
> yesterday and reheated the rest a short time ago. The problem now is
> that I am having a heck of time trying to take out some burnt cheese.
> Is there an easy way or a proper way to remove the burnt cheese from
> the stone without having to scratch it?
>
> Many thanks in advance,
>
> Ray
> Austin, TX
> ===
>

Jude wrote:
>
> Bob Myers wrote:
> Re-heating pizza is one of the main reasons God gave
> > us microwave ovens...:-)
>
> I disagree.
>
> The nuke turns pizza crust into a soggy wet dishsponge! I like to heat
> my pizza in the toasterr oven; it gets hot in 5 minutes in the small
> space.

A toaster oven does indeed work well, but so does a microwave. The key
to successful microwaving of leftover pizza is the elevate the pizza
slice on a suitable rack (plenty available for microwaves) so that the
steam does not build up under the crust.

>
> The secret to grest NY style crust is the double bake...think about it.
> NY pizza places make their pies, then they sit until you order a slice.
> The slice goes into the hot pizza oven and the crust gets that good
> crispiness so you can fold it neatly in half. Yum!

I do the double bake a bit differently. I brush the otherwise bare crust
with olive oil and then pre bake for a few minutes until the top starts
to get slight brown spots. I then top the pizza and return it to the
oven for long enough to melt and slightly brown the cheese. This olive
oil brush and pre bake prevents much sauce from soaking into the crust
to the crust is never soggy.

Pete C.

Those instructions are great for pizza, but not real practical for
other things. If you leave a pizza stone in the oven all the time, it
will take your oven *forever* to heat up for regular cooking. It does
tend to regulate the oven temperature so if your oven's a little flaky
(gets too hot then too cold then too hot, etc while baking), then by
all means leave it in, but let it warm up for a good half hour before
popping the food in.

I use my pizza stone on the rack at the lowest level of the oven, with
the oven as high as it will go (I think mine's 500). I start it
pre-heating around the time that I punch down my pizza dough, if not
before (I frequently let the dough rise in the oven with the heat off,
since it's not so drafty, so when I take it out, I turn on the heat).
The dough then rests for at least 10 minutes before shaping and
topping. Generally I end up with a minimum of 20 minutes of pre-heat
time on the stone. I use parchment under the pizza, not to save the
stone but for the pizza peel. I do fine getting one pizza in and out
without parchment, but the second pizza always sticks to the peel and
ends up upside down on the stone. My pizzas tend to take around 10
minutes to cook, depending on how thin I stretched the crust (I don't
do the real thin crusts).

For frozen pizzas and re-heating, don't bother with the stone. Just
use a perforated pizza pan or regular cookie sheet.