Thin crust pizza is a popular favorite and it tastes best when the crust comes out crunchy. If you can't get good pizza in your neighborhood, you can still make it at home. You don't have to know how to toss dough in the air. Good pizza has more to do with the way it is cooked than the technique. Take out pizza becomes mushy on the way to your house as the pizza steams up in the box. Enjoying it fresh out of the oven is the best way to eat it. Using the pizza stone, you can make pizza that's just as good as the best pizzeria around.

The pizza stone works so well for two reasons. First, it is made of terra cotta or soapstone, which become very hot and heat the bottom of the pizza evenly during the baking process. The other reason is that it absorbs moisture, drawing it away from the pizza dough. Metals pans can't do this because they become very hot on the outside, cooking the ends of the pizza more quickly than the center of the pizza. So, you'll either end up with burned crust by the time the center is done or you'll have a mushy pizza when the ends are cooked until golden brown. Ovens fluctuate in temperature so that doesn't help the situation either. But the stone lets the whole pizza cook at the same temperature through the baking process. It only needs 12 to 15 minutes at 500 to be done to the perfect crispiness.

To use your pizza stone properly, begin by placing it in a cold oven. Allow it to heat up for a half hour at 500 degrees. When you are ready to place the dough on it, you can either use a pizza paddle to place the stretched dough on it while it remains in the oven, or remove it from the oven and place it on a heatproof surface. Dust the stone with cornmeal before you add the dough. When the pizza is done, you can use the paddle to remove the pizza from the oven, or place the stone on a heatproof surface.

Care should be taken when cleaning the pizza stone. It absorbs everything, so do not use soap or detergent. Never place a hot stone into cold water or it will break. Instead, let it cool down by itself before cleaning. Anything that sticks to the stone can be scraped off with a plastic spatula. Only use warm water to clean it. It will be brown with repeated use, but that's okay. Don't worry about trying to wash that away. The patina that develops over time gives the pizza stone a non-stick surface. If soap does get on the stone, let it sit in water overnight to draw it out.

Homemade pizza will be requested more often in your home once you start using the pizza stone. But, it does have other uses, too. Bake bread, quesadillas and hors d'oevres on it for a beautiful, golden brown crispness.