Our household is slowly doing away with all of our non-stick cookware. Once something is scratched up we replace it. I have just placed an order for a enameled cast iron bread pan. The lid doubles as a second pan, so honestly I'm super excited about this purchase.
I was just wondering if anyone has any personal experience with baking with cast iron pans? If so, do you have any fun tips or tricks that can help me be successful?
I do not bake sourdough, I mainly just do regular sandwich breads and similar items. So my research has mainly turned up pretty generic information.
Thank you in advance, and have a wonderful day!
I have used plain cast iron loaf pans to bake bread for years. The bread always falls out of the pans when I turn them over. I season them with Crisco and bake most of my loaves around 350°. I do have some Dutch ovens that I used for artisan loaves baked at 475°. I seasoned them with Crisco and set off the smoke alarm immediately when pre-heating them. Crisco’s smoke point really isn’t that high so now I don’t pre-heat those pans. The moral of the story: match your seasoning’s smoke point to the temperature you might someday use to bake the bread, especially if you want to pre-heat the pan.
When I have baked bread in a black cast iron Dutch oven, the bottom of the loaf tended to burn. I folded up a sheet of aluminum foil to fit the bottom, and covered that with a circle of parchment paper. This prevented the scorching of the bottom.
For skillets and woks I suggest carbon steel instead of cast iron. It performs very well and is much lighter than cast iron. You season it in the same way as cast iron.
TomP
I use unenameled cast iron fry pans for pizza and corn bread and it always comes out well. Season with a little oil or butter. I have to assume that regular bread would work just fine as well.