KITCHEN PRACTICE 1 — Full Preheat, Baking the Hand-Stretched Dough
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Chapter: Italian Cookery 7 — Baking Pizza at Home

TASK
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Preheat your oven and pizza stone or steel together for a full hour
at maximum temperature, then bake the hand-stretched dough disc you
set aside in Chapter 6, launching it from a semolina-dusted peel.

WHAT TO DO
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1. Place your pizza stone or steel in the oven and set it to its
   maximum temperature.
2. Let it preheat for a full hour, even after the oven itself
   signals it's reached temperature — the extra time is for the
   stone/steel's own mass to fully heat through, not the air.
3. While it preheats, bring your Chapter 6 hand-stretched dough disc
   to room temperature if it's been chilled, and top it with your
   chosen toppings.
4. Dust a pizza peel generously with semolina flour and assemble the
   pizza directly on it, moving quickly once assembled.
5. Line the pizza up with the far edge of the hot stone/steel and
   launch it with a short, confident forward-then-back motion.
6. Bake according to your oven's typical time for pizza at maximum
   temperature (check periodically rather than relying on a fixed
   number), watching for a deeply golden, blistered crust.

WHAT TO EXPECT
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- The pizza should slide cleanly off the peel onto the stone/steel
  without sticking, if the semolina dusting and quick assembly were
  done properly.
- The crust should puff up noticeably at the rim, with real char
  spots developing — a direct, visible result of the full hour-long
  preheat actually heating the stone or steel all the way through.
- If the crust looks pale and doesn't puff much even after the
  typical bake time, the stone/steel likely wasn't fully preheated —
  worth trying again with an even longer preheat next time.

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This exercise puts the chapter's central warning to the test
directly: an oven that "says" it's ready doesn't mean the stone or
steel inside it actually is. Committing to the full hour-long
preheat, even though it feels excessive compared to how ovens are
normally used for other cooking, is what actually delivers the
intense base heat a home oven otherwise can't provide on its own.