About
The Cast Iron Craft is a guide to cooking on cast iron written by people who actually do it. We cover seasoning, care, technique, recipes, cookware types, and buying guides — with explanations rooted in how the pan actually works, not in the folklore that gets passed around online.
What you’ll find here
- Seasoning that explains polymerization, not just “rub it with oil.” The right oil and the right temperature matter; everything else is opinion.
- Care and cleaning that addresses the soap myth directly. Modern dish soap doesn’t strip seasoning. The advice that built that myth was written when soaps still contained lye.
- Technique for the things cast iron does better than anything else: searing, frying, baking with retained heat, dutch oven bread, skillet pizza.
- Recipes that actually need the pan. Cornbread with a real crust. Steak with a proper crust. Skillet pizza that browns the bottom. Not “you can make this in a cast iron” — recipes the cast iron does best.
- Cookware types because cast iron isn’t one thing. Skillets, dutch ovens, grill pans, griddles, mini skillets, enameled vs bare, antique vs modern.
- Buying guides with side-by-side reviews. Lodge for daily. Stargazer when the eggs matter. Smithey and Field when the heirloom matters. Le Creuset and Staub when braising matters.
Our editorial stance
Cast iron content online is full of mistakes that propagate because nobody pressure-tests them. We try to do better:
- Show the chemistry. Seasoning is polymerization. Polymerization needs heat, time, and a drying oil. Skip any one of those and you get the dull, sticky surface that nobody likes.
- Pressure-test the myths. Some are real (don’t soak it overnight), some aren’t (a quick wash with dish soap is fine). We say which is which.
- Test the gear we recommend. Buying guides are head-to-head comparisons of pans we own and have cooked on, not affiliate links bolted onto generic top-10 lists.
Who writes here
Two editors, each owning a side of the pan. See the authors page for full bios.
- Emma Hollis covers seasoning, care, and technique. The how-it-works side.
- Tess Bowman covers recipes, cookware types, and buying guides. The what-to-cook side.
Affiliate disclosure
When you buy a cast iron pan through one of our recommendation links, we may earn a small commission at no cost to you. See our full affiliate disclosure for the details. We only recommend pans we’ve cooked on.
Contact
Questions, corrections, or “you got this wrong” emails: hello@thecastironcraft.com. We update articles when we learn we got something wrong, and we credit the reader who flagged it.