Tips & Tricks: Baking on a Stone

Granite, basalt, flint and a whole range of other stones can store a huge amount of heat energy, which in turn makes them perfect for grilling and baking – and that is good news for everyone who likes cooking outdoors, because you can always find a few stones wherever you are. All you’ve got to do is to light a camp fire to heat the stones through; then, you can put flatbreads or small, thin loaves onto the hot surface. The resulting bread is both crusty and moist. Check the online shops of manufacturers such as NEFF for baking stones so you can make bread and pizza like this at home, too.

Build a campfire, collecting stones and placing them around a mound filled with small twigs and larger logs. Avoid wet stones as they may split at high temperatures. Clean two or three of the flatter stones off with a towel – these will be the ones you bake the bread on later. Now light the fire and, once the blaze has died down somewhat, place the stones straight into the embers for at least 20 minutes.

Divide up your prepared dough and form oval flatbreads roughly as thick as your thumb. Brush half of one side of each flatbread with a paste – one made of herbs, capers, anchovies, onions and butter, for example, and then fold over the other half and press the edges down well. Drizzle some olive oil over the loaves and then bake them on the hot stones for around 15 minutes on either side, turning them as they cook.