Baking bread in a Dutch Oven

[Mike Nolan]

I've been following Jimmy Griffin's YouTube page lately, and he just put up some suggestions for how to bake a sourdough loaf in a Dutch Oven, using some parchment paper as a sling to lower the dough into the hot pan without burning your fingers.

Sometimes he scores the loaf before putting it in the Dutch Oven, sometimes afterwards, though the former sounds safer to me.

He then puts 2 ice cubes in the pan to generate a little more steam in the oven.

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[BakerAunt]

Interesting video. I would not have thought to put the ice cubes in the pan with the breads. I'm still not willing to try dropping a loaf into a hot pan. I do want to try a loaf in my ceramic Dutch oven which does not need the pre-heating.

[Joan Simpson]

I enjoyed watching this.

[Mike Nolan]

Jimmy recently started numbering his lessons, his latest is #60, on using a lame for scoring bread. Some of his scoring designs at the end are interesting and even amusing.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't tried the parchment sling idea yet, it probably works better if you have full sheet pan sized parchment sheets (26 inches long, probably cut in half lengthwise.) I generally use my cookie spatula, which has a long enough handle I've never come close to burning myself as I lower the bread into the Dutch Oven. While moving the pan or lid around is a different story, though.

[skeptic7]

I have had success baking in a cold Dutch oven, a 1 1/2 lb loaf -- 4 cups of flour -- takes about 50 minutes. A hot Dutch oven seems to be so dangerous. How long does it take to bake with a hot Dutch Oven.

[Mike Nolan]

I've baked loaves up to about 18 ounces of dough in my Dutch Oven, it usually takes around 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees, depending on how brown you like them. Interestingly enough, according to several BBGA bakers, loaves that are a light to golden brown outsell the darker ones.

I've burned myself on the oven racks more than on any pots and pans.

[BakerAunt]

Oh, yes. Oven racks, or sometimes the upper edge of the oven tended to be where I would burn my arms or wrists. With the design of my current oven--and I also remove any upper racks I am not using for a given recipe--I have so far been able to avoid doing so.

[Mike Nolan]

I think wall ovens, which are higher up, might make handling easier, but I've only worked with them a few times at my son's house. (My mother-in-law's house had a wall oven that she never used, she preferred the one in the stove, when someone did try to use the wall oven it turned out it had never been wired up!)

[Mike Nolan]

One advantage the oven under the stovetop has is you've got the stove top as a staging area, assuming it isn't all in use. With my 48" dual fuel range, unless we're using the grill or griddle, we've got that space available. With a wall oven, you've got to have some space nearby for staging.

The ergonomics of oven loading and unloading is something that comes up on the BBGA forum frequently, many commercial ovens are at wall-oven height.

[BakerAunt]

I have an oven under the stove--it's a 30-inch dual fuel--and I agree that having the oven top available is handy. The oven is lower to the floor with this Wolf oven than my previous Thermador or the old avocado green one that came with this house. I burned myself more on both of those.

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