Sure, it looks like the pizza stone your mom uses to bake her pies at home. The Modernist Cuisine Special Edition Baking Steel, however, steps it up in the cooking department like no other pizza stone could.
Sporting a solid alloy baking surface with a body 3/8 of an inch thick, it boasts 18 times greater thermal conductivity than any ceramic pizza stone, allowing you to cook multiple pizzas in rapid succession. Not only do they cook faster, they end up crispier, too, allowing you to finish a Neapolitan-style pizza with those golden brown blistering crusts in just 4 minutes. Imagine: a dozen piping hot, crispy pies in under an hour — life is complete.
Created by Baking Steel in collaboration with the fine folks behind Modernist Cuisine, the Special Edition Baking Steel has a surface area measuring 16 x 14 inches, allowing you to make relatively sizable pizzas with it, too. Since it’s made from steel, it’s virtually indestructible — no shatters or cracks no matter how many times you drop it (unless you drop it in the mouth of an active volcano, that is). To use, simply place the steel in the sweet spot of your oven, preheat the broiler on high for one hour, and slide your dough in while the broiler element is glowing. Aside from making pizzas in your oven, it can also be used as a griddle for your stovetops and grills, as well as a cold plate if you leave it in the fridge for a few hours.
The Modernist Cuisine Special Edition Baking Steel is available now, priced at $99.