Dear Fredricka and Allen,
Regarding baking stones, I have been using one for a long time, and I find
there is an awful lot of strange advice about it being bandied about. I
only keep mine in the oven for baking certain breads, and keep it put away
for the rest of the time. By keeping the stone in the oven all the time,
you will really be wasting a lot of energy, because preheating takes forever.
For making bread (and, trust me, it's not worth it for frozen pizza), put
the stone on the HIGHEST possible shelf, taking into consideration the
height of the bread when fully risen. For the best quality baking, you
want the heat to be as even as possible, bottom to top. To get sufficient
top heat, you need to get the bread as close as possible to the top of the
oven, where there is quit a bit of radiant heat (remember that heat rises
and will circulate in your oven). For most recipes, this will be in the
middle of the oven, but for pizza and other flat bread, I will try to put
the stone up even higher. Ever notice how low pizza ovens are? I see some
people recommending putting the stone at the bottom of the oven, but you
will quickly find that if you do that, you will burn the bottom of your
bread before the top has even begun to brown. I have tried this in both
gas and electric ovens and it holds true in both.
Preheat the stone for an hour to the same temperature that you will bake
the bread to get the full benefit of the stone.
You can try putting a pan of water below the stone, but if you have ever
baked in a professional oven with compressed steam, you will consider it a
wasted effort. I just spray the bread with a mister just before baking it,
and don¹t bother with anything else. I have never noticed a difference with
the pan of water.
About the milk, scalding the milk makes a HUGE difference in the volume of
your bread, especially if you are trying for a really big oven spring. With
proper shaping, your breads should be able to at least quadruple in volume
when fully baked. With unscalded milk, this is impossible, and the texture
is much coarser. Professional bakers use heat-treated dried milk, to avoid
the depressing effect of unscalded milk. I have to check the literature,
but this is either due to an enzyme in the milk or another protein there,
which is denatured by scalding it. Fascinating science!
Best,
Maggie Glezer