Greetings fellow bread makers!

After a long wait to gather all my tools and equipment together, I baked my first loaf following the Lahey method this morning ready for my fellow housemates to wake up to the smell of fresh bread. Anyway, overall it turned out well although a little under done but I'm faulting the oven for that. My only gripe is that it's a little too flat, coming up just under 5cm tall at the highest point. 

I'm using a 5L Enameled Dutch Oven, and a little after bake tinkering led me to discover that my no-stick loaf pan fits perfectly inside. So, can anyone maybe help me predict how the loaf would turn out, in terms of crust, texture and crumb would be like if I were to bake the loaf in a loaf pan in a DO?

My main concern would be that the crust not being that thin and crackly. Also, I would have to do the second rise in the loaf pan itself which makes transfering easier.

Regards,

Damian N.

Neighbor has asked for an avocado bread.  All he could tell me is his mother made it like a banana bread in a loaf pan.

Any one have a recipe?  Do I swap out the butter for avocado?  Equal amounts?

Any help is appreciated.  Thanks!

Hi everyone, I was curious for any tips or pointers - I was wondering if anyone has tried making a lean artisan loaf using a bread pan?

I was thinking of making my country loaf or whole wheat variation, but instead of forming into a boule and placing in a pre-heated dutch oven, forming it into a batard-ish shape and into a loaf pan, just to see how it may change things.

I have standard aluminum loaf pans that work well for my enriched sandwich loaves.  Do these pans have any upper limit on temperature, or will they be ok at 450-500F?

Score the loaf?  Other ideas or tips?

-Nico

Found an adjustable loaf pan today much like the one shown in this post, but with some interesting differences. (Wish I had pictures, but words will have to do for now.)

First, it's shiny and the top edge is folded, rather than rolled as in rayel's example.

Also, the half that slides out has increments marked in both inches and centimeters that correspond to the length of the loaf. The largest marks are 15 inches and 38 cm. The top of the pan is about 4 inches wide and it's about 2 5/8 inches deep.

Finally, and most curious to me, one end has markings stamped into the metal. There's a horizontal line and two vertical arrows, one above and one below, that meet in the horizontal line's middle; together, they make a kind of axis.

Around this axis are stamped four words, one in each quadrant. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, they read Leer, vide, Pate, Teig. Here's a rough version of how it looks:

Leer | vide

------------

Teig | Pate

Obviously, German on the left, French on the right. Babelfish tells me the bottom two mean paste, while the top two mean empty. Built-in advice about how much to dough to put in, I guess. 

The pan seems well made, with nice sharp corners. The folded top edge has me thinking about fashioning a slide-in cover that could transform this into a makeshift Pullman pan.

Oh, and I bought it at a St Vincent DePaul in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for 75 cents. There was a little rust, but steel wool took it right off.

So I've been working my way through PR's whole grain artisan bread book with fairly good results. I noticed that for the his sandwich loaves, he is recommending a 8.5 x 4 loaf pan instead of the standard 8.5 x 4.5.  Is this a typo? If not where can I get one? I've just spent an hour online looking through amazon and the various other kitchen gear sites with no luck. 

Thanks for any suggestions

Lodge Manufacturing makes the only cast iron loaf pan made in th USA that I know of.  Sante Fe and Old Mountain are made in China.  If that's okay with you, that's fine, this is not an argument for or against manufacturing in China.  I just wanted to post this for those of you who may have been searching for a cast iron loaf pan made in the USA.  Lodge sells theirs only once a year, and I wanted to share it with you that they are currently on sale, but only until November 28.

http://www.lodgemfg.com/october_28th.asp

I found a Cerutil bread loaf pan that has non-stick coating inside.

it is ceramic/stoneware and had no directions. I tried the website for Cerutil but no luck.

Anyone out there use one of these?

Thanks

Hello again!

The recent postings about pullman pans reminded me that my favorite loaf pan suddenly decided to impart my latest ww loaf crust with a silvery-flecked shine.

So many loaf pans, even the more expensive pullman pans I found online, seem to list "coatings" of one kind or another.

I would like to find some good, very sturdy, old-fashioned metal baking pans that I can scrub like crazy OR, as my grandmother did, season and continue to use after wiping out.  (Heresy in today's world of antibacterial cleaning products, I'm sure!)

Do such things exist?  What do professional bakers use for their loaves?  I'm not averse to paying for such things, as I expect they would last for a very long time in the home kitchen.  Just can't seem to find anything without a 'coating'.  Makes me nervous!

I'm interesting in finding these in 'normal' size/shape as well as pullman with lid.

Any advice, experience, words of wisdom (or wit) are greatly appreciated.

Freezing my loaves off in New England....

MommaT

I’ve been so curious about semolina flour. I didn’t understand much about it and there doesn’t seem to be a lot of information regarding it. After reading as much as I could find in various bread books I decided I had to take a stab at it. So last weekend I baked this yeasted sandwich version along with another sourdough version. (I will post that one separately.)