Quarry Tiles - the Way to Go in Your Home Oven

I made three pizzas last Friday night, and they may have been the best I've done at home, ever. I say that not to blow my own horn but because this was the first time I've made pizzas on the quarry tiles that I bought some time ago at The Tile Shop on Jefferson Rd. I'd used them for bread, but not pizza up until now. Much cheaper than pizza stones, and the crusts came out great, better than I've gotten from pizza stones.

I put the tiles on the middle rack, and also added four bricks on the lower rack to act as "thermal mass" to help maintain a constant temperature. That may have made a difference too, because the third pizza came out as good as the first, whereas in the past I've noticed that the crust wouldn't cook quite as quickly or as well after one or two pizzas, I think because the oven and the pizza stone itself would start to lose heat when I opened the oven door, and in transferring heat to the raw dough.

A pizza's only as good as the dough it's made with, and so I'd be remiss if I didn't also give props to my wife for a good job on making the dough. The recipe was Peter Reinhart's recipe for New York Style Pizza in American Pie, which I highly recommend for any serious home pizza bakers. The dough was easy to handle, stretchable (I even managed a few tosses without incident), and baked up beautifully.

If you've got a pizza stone you're happy with, then by all means continue to use it, but if you'd like to try an alternative, a few quarry tiles will only set you back a few bucks. I've had mine lead tested and they're safe. Oh, and if you want to use bricks too, make sure they're clay bricks, not concrete.