Baking – How to reliably bake pizza with no temperature control or pizza stone

We had an older (1950's) gas oven for a decade which had very uneven heating and used a large pizza stone ( 13" by 16" ) to even out the heat. We did this by putting the stone on an oven rack in the lowest position, and making sure to give the oven at least 25min of heat-up time so the stone would be as hot as the oven. This did, indeed, help even out hot spots in the oven and decrease its tendency to burn delicate foods like cookies. It also eliminated the requirement to remember to take the pizza stone in and out of the oven.

You do not want to put the pizza stone directly on the oven floor. Three reasons:

1. It could block hot air vents from the flame into the oven chamber;
2. The oven floor is generally not designed to support weight and could be damaged;
3. The pizza stone is liable to crack or even explode from thermal shock due to rapid heating if it's in direct contact with the metal over the burner.

Also, do be aware that your pizza stone will accumulate crud from food dripping/dropping in the oven, which burns into a black carbon powder. We turned the stone upside down every few weeks limit accumulation.

Cooking temperature and time are determined by a number of factors. The idea is to get the inside of the product properly cooked before the outside dries out, becomes tough, or becomes unpleasantly dark or even burned. At the same time, you usually want the product to get nicely browned (adds flavor and looks nice) before the inside is overcooked. So it's a balance.

Factors which influence appropriate temperature and time include:

• ingredients: High protein ingredients (like meat or eggs) easily become tough when overcooked. High sugar or starch recipes will tend to brown or burn more easily.

• moisture level: For some products, such as popovers or many kinds of pastry, steam is an important leavening agent, and a high temperature is called for. In other products, like cookies, one of the goals of baking is to drive off excess moisture. And in still others, moisture is absorbed into the other ingredients.

• shape: A fat, round loaf will usually need a longer cooking time and lower temperature than a thin, flat pizza or a long, skinny baguette because it takes longer for the center of the loaf to heat up.

• pH: Changing the pH of the product will change how it browns.

• leavening: Some chemical leavening, like double-acting baking powder, activates at a certain temperature.

• personal preference: At the end of the day, the most important factor is whether you like the way the product turned out. If you like a crispier crust, change the temperature and/or cooking time to suit your taste.

Any baking recipe should specify the temperature and cooking time, unless perhaps it's from a book that specifies those things for a number of recipes at once. If not, find a similar recipe and use the temperature specified there, but keep a close eye on the product during the baking process. Learn how to tell when the product is done. For cakes, you usually go by color for the outside, and by temperature or using a toothpick or wooden skewer for the inside. (Briefly: poke a wooden toothpick into the center of a cake; if it comes out with wet batter, keep cooking; if it comes out clean and dry, it's probably overcooked; if it comes out with a few crumbs stuck to it, it's probably perfect.)