I absolutely love my baking stone (I have a square pizza stone similar to this one because it is more versatile than a round one.) I use it all the
time and for pretty much everything I put in the oven. (Disclosure: I
am including affiliate links for your convenience.)
Which I learned is a mistake.
The food I bake on my pizza stone is starting to taste weird. The
stone smells and smokes when I put it in a hot oven.
Why?
Because baking and pizza stones are porous. That’s how they do
their job of creating perfectly baked bread and pizza crusts. But the
porous stone can also absorb and trap the fats and oils in the food
baked on top of it. Over time, the oil heats and releases into the
lovely seasoning you created by baking on the stone and makes your
pizza or bread taste awful and/or fill your kitchen with eye watering
smoke. Bleach!
In other words, I should have used a metal baking sheet to make
oven baked French fries and not my baking stone. Oops.
You should not
wash a pizza stone with soap and water because the same porous
surface that absorbed the oil or fat (like cheese) will do the exact
same thing with dish washing detergent. Then your baking stone will
taste like rancid oil and soap. No thanks.
The best and easiest way to remove the bad taste and wash a baking
and pizza stone is in the refrigerator case of your favorite grocery
store – a tube of biscuits or crescent rolls! I suggest buying the
cheapest tube of rolls you can find because you will throw it away (I
composed mine) when you are done.
1. Remove the biscuit dough from the tube.
2. Cover the entire pizza or baking stone with the dough. I used
two rolls of Aldi crescent rolls to cover the entire surface of my
pizza stone.
3. Bake the dough according to the oven temperature and time on
the package. As the dough bakes it will draw the rancid fat and oil
from the baking stone and into the dough.
4. Remove the stone from the oven. Allow it to cool until it is
safe enough to handle. Scrap the dough from the baking stone with a
spatula and discard the dough.
You can prevent your pizza stone from tasting bad by putting a
piece of baking parchment paper like this kind in
between the stone and the item you want to bake on it. Oh and learn
from my mistake and only use your baking stone to bake bread and
pizzas.
Looking for more pizza stone and cast iron skillet cleaning ideas?
Check out the following options – and more! – below!
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