Condo Blues: How to Season and Wash a Baking Stone

Thursday, April 2, 2009

How to Season and Wash a Baking Stone

Scene: A lazy Saturday morning. Lisa is snoozing her life away snuggled under 7 blankets on her bed. Husband enters the room.

Husband: Lisa, wake up. I already took Blitzkrieg out side for a potty.

Me: “…….”

Husband: I made scones for breakfast.

Me: “!!!!!!!”

Yes, my wonderful Husband whipped up a batch of cherry scones and served them with teeny jars of clotted cream and lemon curd for breakfast. The cherry scones were a wonderful surprise because weekend morning breakfasts are usually a fend for yourself type of deal. The only exception is that one of us makes a gallon of coffee which we sip throughout the morning at our leisure.


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Even better was that Husband used our baking stone to make the scones. A seasoned baking stone is a wonderful alternative to using a Teflon baking pan which can leach questionable substances into your food while you cook it. It also saves me a little bit of money because I don’t have to use cooking oils, butter, spray with a seasoned baking stone.



Seasoning a baking stone is easy – bake on it. A lot. That’s it. Well that and you don’t want to put your baking stone in the dishwasher. If you feel the need to clean a baking stone, just scrape the baked parts off of it and wash it ever so lightly with dish soap in the sink. We use our baking stone for just about everything. For bread, cookies, dog treats, pizza, even corn dogs!

We don’t eat a lot of prepared foods but we make a serious exception for the occasional corn dog. Usually on days that we go grocery shopping and need to make a quick meal afterward. Why? Because we the  corn dogs!

Most corn dogs don’t have high fructose corn syrup (but check the package to make sure) either. We try to avoid HFCS because we are starting to watch our sugar and cholesterol now that we see that our older relatives are having problems with it. Better to be safe early than sorry later!

Since our baking stone is heavy and unwieldy we store it in the oven. That’s what works for us.


This post is part of Thrifty Green Thursday.

12 comments :

Cathy said...

that looks great--I'll have to get one of those. we have metal pans, and some of old and starting to rust.

Unknown said...

I love my baking stones! Yes, I have a few- round, square, rectangle. Because I loved them so much, I also switched to stoneware pie plates, cake pans, jelly roll pans, and several other essentials!

emw said...

We have one stone that doesn't seem to be the best. I think it was a really cheap low quality one. Do you feel quality makes a difference when it comes to baking stones? Have you found any that work well? I have found that a standard industrial style jelly roll pan is my baking sheet of choice.

Joy said...

I have really been wanting to switch from teflon but haven't know about other options. I didn't even know there was anything like this beyond a pizza stone! Thanks so much for sharing your thrifty green tip!

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

emw - I think what really matters is how much you use/season your baking stone. My first baking stone (Pampered Chef) cracked in two after using it for many years. I contacted the company and other bakers and they said that it wasn't unusual. When I lookd for a replacement, I tried to get a thicker one than the thinner one. I think that's why this one hasn't cracked.

Joy - the round stone are usually sold as pizza stones. I got a square stone because more cookies, etc. would fit on a square stone than a round one. But you can certainly bake cookies or dog treats! on a round "pizza stone".

Joanne Kennedy said...

I've never cooked on a baking stone. It's good to hear they work good. I do not use Teflon any more and have not for years. I heard how birds can die if they are near them and breathe in the fumes. While I don't have a bird I did think that it couldn't be good for humans either if birds die from it.

Oh and thanks for pointing out the difference if the real sport drinks compared to the energy drinks. You are so right. I should have pointed that out.

Hugs,
Joanne

ilex said...

Jeepers, those look completely fabulous. Baking was off my list for years (celiac) but I'm slowly re-learning to bake with some locally grown spelt flour
(re-learning to bake is almost as bad as re-learning to walk). Your post convinces me-- I really need a stone.

Silver Pen said...

Its probably good that you don't eat corn syrup. Not all but a lot of the corn syrup used in America has murcury in it. Due to theay they process the corn. You can read about it on Grist.

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

Hi Betty - I think you're referring to the study that showed that mercury was found in some high fructosed corn syrup as a result of how the process the plant used to make the HFCS. While I choose to avoid high fructose corn syrup I want to remind everyone that corn syrup and high fructose corn syup ARE NOT the same thing. But I'm sure that you as well as the rest of my readers aren't those people jump to that conclusion.

Tammy said...

Oh wow thank you ... I have been thinking about the teflon I'm using but didn't know there was an alternative, as soon as I started reading this post a new world of options opened up to me!

Wicked said...

Just a quick note to say that generally you do not want to use dish soap, or any soap when cleaning a baking stone- as the soap can leech into the stone and then leech right back into the food your baking!

Generally just scraping off any mess works, but if one really wants to clean it, a quick scrub with just baking soda and water is sufficient.

But please, to stay healthy keep the stone away from soap!

Guest said...

my baking stone from the same company just cracked in 2 after 15 YEARS!!!!! ohhhhhh...the agony!!! i just got one for $10---lets see how long it lasts. thanks for the seasoning tip.......i forgot!!!

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