philbo

You might also try a moister environment for the first few minutes of baking. If you put a cup of boiling water into a preheated sheetpan or iron skillet, the water will steam up the oven. That should prevent your crusts from hardening prematurely.

I'd check with Dolores at Sugarcraft (http://www.sugarcraft.com/). She will do the printouts for you, or can sell you the supplies to do this yourself. I've ordered products from Sugarcraft before (although not this one), and they are great.

When I first started using cast iron I also got a lot of smoke. This is an adjustment moving from other pans to cast iron. I've just gone through it. With other pans (especially medium weight pans) you heat 'em up hot, and just turn down the gas when they start to smoke, no problem. You probably do it without even thinking about it. Because cast iron retains heat so much more than other pans, by the time the pan gets so hot that you notice it, the seasoning is burning off, and it'll take a few minutes for it to stop smoking. Also, if you move a cast iron pan off heat, it takes a while for it to cool down. The easiest way around this is to preheat with *moderate* heat. Because cast iron doesn't cool down as much when you put food in it, you don't need to get your pans quite so hot before you start cooking. I've managed to keep my smoke detector plugged in for a few weeks now.