Steel sheet instead of pizza stone?
I just finished reading an online piece on "Modernist Cuisine", the six volume tome covering virtually all aspects of cooking. In the piece, the following is suggested for baking the perfect Neopolitan-style pizza in your home oven:
PROBLEM #3: You love Neopolitan-style pizza, but don't want to invest in a brick oven.
SOLUTION: Make an oven out of a steel sheet.
Get a ¼-inch-thick sheet of steel from a metal fabricator (Google a local one), have it cut to the size of your oven shelf and insert it in the rack closest to the broiler. Preheat the oven at its highest temperature for ½ hour, then turn on the broiler and slide your pizza onto the metal plate. It should emerge perfectly cooked in 1.5 to 2 minutes.
WHAT'S GOING ON: Pizza in a brick oven cooks at about 800 degrees-way hotter than the highest setting of most home ovens. The metal sheet is more conductive than a brick oven's stone, so it can cook just as fast at a lower temperature.
Any volunteers? How about steel sheets for bread as well?