Meet Andris, Inventor of the Baking Steel
Back in 2012, I was on a mission: make legendary pizza at home.
I’d spent years in professional kitchens working alongside chefs like Todd English and I knew exactly what great pizza should taste like. But in my home oven, I couldn’t recreate that pizzeria-quality crust. Something was missing.
How one idea sparked a pizza revolution
Reading Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine, a single line stopped me cold:
“Steel conducts heat better than stone.”
Lightbulb moment. My family had run Stoughton Steel Company for over 50 years. I grabbed a slab from my dad’s shop, slid it into my oven, and launched a pizza.
Boom. The crust came out crispy, airy, and perfectly blistered. That first bite told me everything: steel beats stone.
From steel shop experiment to worldwide movement
During our Kickstarter, Kenji López-Alt—whom I didn’t know at the time tested my steel, loved the results, and wrote a blog shout-out that sent readers to our campaign. It changed the game.
What started in a family steel shop has grown into a movement. Today, tens of thousands of home cooks and pros use Baking Steel to make foldable NY slices, blistered Neapolitan pies, crusty breads, naan, and more all from a regular oven or grill.
