Our Inspiration

A match made in heaven.

A unique combination of interests and skills led to the birth of the Baking Steel. And, in my humble opinion, pizza is the better for it.

Having studied Culinary Arts, I’m pretty passionate about food – pizza in particular. In fact, my thoughts are never far from creating the perfect crust.

As fate would have it, one day, I was reading pieces of Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold. In his book, Nathan stated that the best tool to use for making the perfect crust would be a piece of steel. And that, my friends, was my “AHA” moment! You see, I grew up with and worked for a family-owned, steel manufacturing business, Stoughton Steel.

As soon as I could, I hustled out to our plant, found a piece of quarter-inch, high-quality steel and brought it home for some testing. According to Modernist Cuisine, steel is a more conductive cooking surface than a brick oven’s stone. Because of that conductivity, it cooks faster and more evenly at a lower temperature, resulting in a beautiful, thin, crispy crust. Real-life tests with my steel confirmed that theory completely for me!

I had spent plenty of time over the years with countless pans, pizza stones, gadgets and gear trying to perfect my pizzas in a home oven. But I was always disappointed. Who knew the solution had been waiting for me all along in a pile of steel over at the shop. Talk about serendipity!

I’m lucky to be living out this dream of combining two great interests of my life into one amazing product! Now, like pizza lovers everywhere, you can “create the crust you crave.”

Best,

Andris

P.S. You should read about how pizza fans everywhere helped us launch the Baking Steel on Kickstarter.