I would suggest leaving your pizza stone in the oven and either cooking directly on it or putting the sheet pan on the stone.
Inconsistent heating (over cooking time or throughout the oven) can contribute to irregularly risen food. It also would explain why your big heavy cast iron stove, with lots of mass to hold heat, would produce consistent food, and why other appliances do not. I like to leave my pizza stone in the oven all the time for all my cooking to increase the mass of the oven and improve efficiency/cost too. I would project that gas ovens would also produce poor results because the temperature swings are usually greater than electric ovens.
Try heating the oven fully to heat the pizza stone through (on 500 deg or broil) then cooking at desired temperature to promote conductive heat transfer. This is helpful for pizza and other crusty items too.
August 1, 2008 at 1:03pm