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comment by cwenham
cwenham  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A personal triumph in pizza

No wonder I can't figure out how to make a decent Italian bread, even with a gas oven. I had no idea the wood fired ovens got that hot.

The Safety Raj seems to think we clumsy apes are capable of handling a 1600-watt microwave, now. Maybe they'll relent on the 500-degree ceiling of standard consumer ovens, and then I can try making a steak "Ruth's Chris" style or something.

Have you tried pre-heating the pizza stone outside of the oven somehow? I'm not sure how it would be done--wood fire in the back yard, table-top BBQ grill, or a blowtorch, maybe.





zebra2  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

If you have a quality baking stone, then you can probably get decently comparable results. We're talking a stone a few inches thick here, and pre-heating times of an hour at least. Setting to broil would probably be the best way to preheat since it probably gets the hottest.

humanodon  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Baking is finicky stuff. Are you sure it's the oven that's making it come out differently than you'd like? Like many home cooks/bakers, I have learned this the hard way.

cwenham  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've tried a few different temperatures and baking times, but I usually get a flattened loaf that resembles stale, unsweetend biscotti. Even the ducks at the pond wouldn't eat it.

Sometimes I get a reasonable success, but maybe it's this new oven I have. It's a GE gas oven with loads of electronics, but unfortunately no circulating fan. My parents once had an oven with a fan and they got much better results with it.

humanodon  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Could it be that the bread needs more time to rise?

cwenham  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'm not sure, I don't think so. It rises more sideways than upwards. Maybe I'm kneading it for too long.

humanodon  ·  4262 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yeah, that could very well be the case. Too much gluten and the bread won't rise properly. I'm not well-versed in baking, but there's a good discussion about this problem here.