Recipes

[house_cat]

I have a recipe for making artisan bread in a Dutch oven.

It indicated heating the the pan "uncovered" for 30 min at 450 degrees before adding the bread, then cover the pan and bake.

It's unclear whether or not I'm supposed to be heating the lid, as well.  It seems some recipes call for heating the lid and others don't.

Does anyone have experience with this?

[AuntMame]

That's a very good question. I heat a cast iron dutch oven with the lid on in the oven for 40 minutes at 425. Seems like 450 is too hot. With the lid on it seems like the inside of the dutch oven gets super-hot and dry. The dryness is what gives the bread its crust. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Julia Child, in her first book on French cooking, recommended putting bricks in the bottom of the oven to crisp the crust of baking bread. I think it's the same principle.

[krisr]

I have been making "artisan" bread for years and have always heated both the cast iron pot and lid. The point is to make the vessel as dry and hot as possible to have a nice crust on it.  hope this helps and enjoy your bread 

[gardenman]

Actually, baking the bread in a dutch oven traps steam in with the bread which is what helps give it that good oven spring and a good crust.

Commercial bread baking ovens use steam injecters but most home ovens don't include them. Most of us use trays of water, spritzing with a spray bottle, or similar techniques to generate steam, but our efforts pale in comparison to the real steam injected ovens.

Hee's a link to another alternative if you prefer to avoid using the dutch oven. http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/9809/put-your-tin-foil-hats

Both the dutch oven and foil roasting pans work best on the higher hydration doughs (wetter doughs) where there's more moisture to flash to steam. As that moisture (typically water) leaves the bread, it's trapped inside the dutch oven/in the form of steam and largely provides the steam filled environment you want for the early stages of bread baking. Nearly all home ovens are vented (typically under the back right burner) and that venting lets the steam generated escape the oven about as fast as you can generate it conventionally. By putting a cover on a raw loaf, you trap the moisture escaping the bread and use that to steam the loaf.

I generally get pretty good reuslts by using a pan of water on the bottom shelf then spritzing a time or two early on.I know I'm generating a decent amount of steam as it clouds my glasses when I open the oven door to add another spritz. Is it as good as a commercial steaming oven? No. But you can still get pretty good results. 

[ValuSkr]

This recipe for No-Knead Bread calls for the covered pot to be in the oven at 450 degrees for at least 1/2 hour before the dough is ready.

http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/11376-no-knead-bread

[house_cat]

Thank you for the help!

I will heat my Dutch oven with the lid this time.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Just one more thing while I have all this support, lol.... my oven has a convection option.  Is it better to use that or just do it the conventional way?

[chi5925]

I just made a loaf of this bread yesterday to bring to my son.  He lives in the city and when I go up there to have lunch, I always make a loaf of this bread for him.

I was skeptical at first after reading the recipe but honestly, it works PERFECTLY!!

And it is totally NO KNEAD. 

My recipe calls for putting in the dutch oven with the lid on for the 30 minute preheaat at 450 degrees.

I also put the dough on parchment paper and then pick up the corners of the parchment paper to put into the hot dutch oven. 

The crust always turns out crisp and the inside is SO yummy!!  It tastes just like a French baguette only bigger.

[house_cat]

@chi5925

Thanks for the great tip about using the parchment to place the dough into the hot pan.  I'll try that next time, because as you know, the dough is quite wiggly and the pan is scorching hot.

I heated the Dutch oven and the lid, separately in the oven for 30 minutes.  The bread turned out beautifully, but it took me 30 minutes of scrubbing to get all the little black specks off my Le Creuset when I was done.  As much as I like the bread, I'm leery about using my expensive vessel this way again.  I'm wondering why it developed all those black burned specks all over the outside of the pot and lid.

Any ideas?

In any case - we enjoyed the bread and it is a super easy recipe. I prepped the dough before work this morning and baked it at dinner time.

 

[CelticCrafter]

I have a friend that makes his bread like this all the time.  

I think he starts the dough the night before.

[chi5925]

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@house_cat wrote:

@chi5925

Thanks for the great tip about using the parchment to place the dough into the hot pan.  I'll try that next time, because as you know, the dough is quite wiggly and the pan is scorching hot.

I heated the Dutch oven and the lid, separately in the oven for 30 minutes.  The bread turned out beautifully, but it took me 30 minutes of scrubbing to get all the little black specks off my Le Creuset when I was done.  As much as I like the bread, I'm leery about using my expensive vessel this way again.  I'm wondering why it developed all those black burned specks all over the outside of the pot and lid.

Any ideas?

In any case - we enjoyed the bread and it is a super easy recipe. I prepped the dough before work this morning and baked it at dinner time.

 

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You did a nice job on the bread.  Isn't it easy??

Gosh, I don't know what the black specks were that you had to scrub out.  I'd be interested to see if any other posters offer an answer on that.

Oh, and you can just put the lid on the pot when you're pre-heating....you don't have to put them in side-by-side.

Yes, the parchment works beautifully.  I don't even have to wash my Le Creuset since the dough never touches the pot because of the parchment paper.