Though baking stones all look kind of the same, they can vary a lot in quality. Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterEven though pizza stones and steels all seem the same — just a slab of material that gets hot — a number of factors can affect how well they perform. Here’s what we considered as we searched for the best ones:Stone vs. steelMore heat isn’t always better, as the undersides of these bread loaves show. The Baking Steel Modernist Cuisine Special Edition (far left) burned the bottom of our loaf. The loaves baked on the Old Stone Pizza Kitchen Rectangular Pizza Stone (middle) and the FibraMent Home Oven Baking Stone (right) were golden, crisp, and puffy — everything we want fresh bread to be. Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterCroissants we baked on our picks (from left): the Baking Steel model, the Old Stone pizza stone, and the FibraMent baking stone. Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterMore heat isn’t always better, as the undersides of these bread loaves show. The Baking Steel Modernist Cuisine Special Edition (far left) burned the bottom of our loaf. The loaves baked on the Old Stone Pizza Kitchen Rectangular Pizza Stone (middle) and the FibraMent Home Oven Baking Stone (right) were golden, crisp, and puffy — everything we want fresh bread to be. Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterWe mainly focused on baking stones made from unglazed cordierite ceramic and baking steels.Cordierite ceramic, a material commonly used in commercial bakery ovens, is great for baking stones because, as materials science professor William Carty told us, “It’s rather insensitive to rapid changes in temperature.” So it won’t crack when you drop a cool piece of dough on the hot surface.Ceramic stones are great for baking not only pizza and bread but also biscuits, scones, and tarts. Compared with steel, ceramic transfers heat more moderately and won’t torch the bottoms of delicate baked goods. Susan Reid, a senior recipe developer at King Arthur Baking Company at the time of our interview, bakes a lot on her stone, especially pies. “The ‘oomph’ of bottom heat helps keep the bottom crust from getting soggy,” she said. (Note: Use only ceramic or metal pie plates. The hot stone could cause glass plates to shatter due to thermal shock.)Baking steels, which are made from solid steel, deliver much more intense heat than ceramic. They’re also much thicker than a baking sheet or even a cast-iron pan, and therefore they hold a lot more heat. Ultra-thin-crust pizzas, like New York–style and Neapolitan-style pies, bake very well on steel because the intense blast of heat is crucial to get proper browning and oven spring in a short amount of time. But steel heat is too intense for buttery pastries, as proven by a batch of black-bottomed croissants. The steel also scorched the bottoms of the bread we baked.Size and shapeSize options are almost as important as what a baking stone or steel is made from, because ovens vary. You want as big a baking surface as possible, while still allowing for some airflow around your stone.Rectangular stones are more versatile than round ones. A batch of baguettes or a baking sheet will fit on a rectangle. But on a 14-inch-diameter circle? Not so easy. Even if you’re just interested in making pizza, you want as much surface area as possible to rotate and scoot the pie around so it bakes evenly. That said, if you have a tiny oven and your only option is a round stone, that’s fine. It’s better than nothing!When you’re choosing a size, just make sure there’s a 1-inch gap between the stone and the oven walls on all sides, because that’s crucial for airflow in the oven. Good air circulation not only promotes even baking but also boosts your oven’s longevity and performance. If too much heat is trapped in the lower part of the oven, you run the risk of damaging electronic parts, like a gas oven ignition unit.Thickness Comparing the thicknesses of the 0.5-inch Old Stone pizza stone (top), 0.375-inch Baking Steel Modernist Cuisine steel (middle), and 0.75-inch FibraMent stone (bottom). Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterThere’s a sweet spot when it comes to stone and steel thickness. If it’s too thin, it won’t hold enough heat, especially for baking back-to-back pizzas. Too thick and it’ll take longer than two hours to preheat (and be more unwieldy to move). Depending on the season, that means you could be stretching dough in an unbearably hot kitchen by the time the stone is ready. We found the ideal thickness for a stone to be 0.5 to 0.75 inch, and 0.375 inch for a steel.A top-performing baking stone or steel is a hefty piece of cookware. If you’re worried about lifting it, stone is a good choice because it weighs significantly less than steel.Surface texture A visual comparison of surface texture (clockwise from top left): Old Stone, FibraMent, Emile Henry, and Pizzacraft. Sarah Kobos/NYT WirecutterIn our testing, we found that pizzas baked on stones with coarser surfaces were much browner, crisper, and puffier than ones we made on smoother stones. The pizza we made on a glazed stone turned out surprisingly golden, but the crust was limp and had the mouthfeel of a steamed bun. We surmised that craggier surfaces provide more pathways for steam to escape, encouraging more browning and crisp.The surface texture of a baking steel probably isn’t as important since it has higher conductivity than ceramic. But the baking steels we tested, while not as rough as our favorite stones, do have the coarse texture of a Lodge cast-iron skillet.
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