Andris Lagsdin, a pizza enthusiast who works at a family steel company, was inspired when he read in Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking about the technique of cooking pizza on a metal slab (see page 2·26). He launched a Kickstarter project to commercialize the idea and ultimately founded Baking Steel. Modernist Cuisine has partnered with Baking Steel to produce the Modernist Cuisine Special Edition Baking Steel. Built to precise specifications based on research at The Cooking Lab, this plate of ⅜ inch steel holds enough heat to cook several pizzas to perfection in rapid succession.
Neapolitan-style pizza is traditionally cooked in a wood-fired oven at 800 °F or more. Few home ovens can hit that temperature, but with the Modernist Cuisine Special Edition Baking Steel, you can get the signature crispy, blistered crust of a wood-fired pizza in your own kitchen. This solid alloy baking surface has a thermal conductivity (k) 18 times greater than that of a ceramic pizza stone, so pizzas cook faster and crispier.
The pre-seasoned steel is ready to use. Place the steel in the sweet spot of your oven, and preheat the broiler on high for one hour to bring the steel up to its optimum cooking temperature. Slide a fresh pizza directly onto the steel while the broiler element is glowing. In less than four minutes, you’ll have a Neapolitan-style pizza with a golden-brown, blistered crust.
