Homemade Pizza Stone

I had been wanting to get a pizza/baking stone for our oven and was comparing tiles vs. commerical stones. I found a tile place near my work that sold 12"x12" tiles that were 1" thick...much thicker than any commercial pizza stone I have seen.

I bought the clay walking tiles by Gladding McBean. Apparently they are lead/toxin free and the seller at Fireclay Tile, said they had customers purchase these for pizza stones before. Yay, I took them home and had a friend cut them to 10 X 12 so they could fit side by side in the oven (with an air space around them).

They are really amazing, I can't believe how well then hold heat. Before when we'd open the oven you would feel a rush of warm air. Now, the heat a steady and unwavering...it's as close as we can get to a firebrick oven in our kitchen. For this old electric stove (yes, sadly we don't have natural gas as you have likely noted from the picture above)...it maintains the temperature very, very well.

We have fresh tomatoes and basil in our garden and have been experimenting with Margherita pizzas. I keep forgetting to buy corn meal to use on the bottom (to prevent the pizza from sticking to the stone) so we've been using parchment paper instead. No soggy crust here. I can't wait to use it again.