If you haven't seen one up close and personal, a pizza screen is just what it sounds like. Mine is exactly 14 inches in diameter, and is made from expanded aluminum with a solid aluminum rim. The theory is that the screen allows the heat of the oven to hit the dough directly. More

This stone from Emile Henry has some interesting features. Unlike most pizza stones, the Emile Henry stone is glazed. The point of using stone or ceramic instead of metal is that the stone absorbs moisture from the dough, resulting in a crisper crust. So, glazing sounds like a bad idea, right? I put it to the test, and was quite pleased with the results. More

Go shopping for a new pizza stone, and you'll find a huge variety of surfaces, from metal to clay to natural stone to man-made composites. If you were going solely by recommendations from respected testers, you might settle on the baking stone sold by King Arthur Flour. I decided to put it to the test. More

After testing a single layer of quarry tiles, I decided to see if there was any benefit to stacking the tiles on top of each other. The theory is that a thicker stone holds heat better, which is why many bakers seek out the thickest baking stones they can find. I was pretty happy with the way the pizza baked on my single layer of quarry tiles, but wondered if a double layer would be better. More

When my favorite pizza stone broke a while back, I started shopping for a new one. It wasn't long before I was mired in indecision. I knew it would take me a while to sort through details and narrow the field down a bit, so I opted for the super-cheap temporary fix—unglazed quarry tiles. More

While pizza stones like the one we tested last week are pretty popular, they have their drawbacks: they're bulky, heavy, and a little pricey. How does a cheaper, thinner, lighter aluminum pizza pan compare? More

Over the course of my next few columns, I'll be testing a variety of cooking surfaces to see how they perform. We'll start the testing with a cheap, basic pizza stone that's 13 inches in diameter and less than 1/2 inch tall. More