April 20, 2011 - 5:48pm
Sticking prevention for baking in a dutch oven
I tried baking bread in a ss dutch oven years ago and the only thing I remember about it was that it stuck terribly to the bottom of the pot.
I have a Le Creuset combo cooker type of cast iron enameled pot that I would love to try to bake a small loaf in (it is a 2 quart pan) but am afraid of the dough getting stuck to the sides of the pot. I know I can use parchment paper on the bottom and will have no problems but if the loaf spreads and touches the sides of the pot I am afraid of running into 'stuck crust' syndrome......
Wondering if anyone has experience that they can share with me as to how to prevent a dough from sticking on the side of the pot....
I bake lean and enriched loaves using sourdough or commercial yeast.
Thanks!
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Put a ring of parchment paper around the interior sides and another layer of parchment on the bottom. Problem solved ...
Oil the pan then flour it.
I have both parchment and oil and the pan....will try each and see what happens.
Thanks for the ideas!
I personally wouldn't oil and flour the pan. Since you're baking at such high heat, doing so will just make clean-up more of a hassle and contribute to discloring the enamel. Parchment should work fine.
if it sticks with parchment paper, i would take the stuff back! :)
If you cut a piece of parchment paper with extra length on both ends, and proof the loaf on that, you can use that to pick up the loaf to lower it into the preheated D.O. I've done this many times with no problem with sticking. The long paper ends serve as handles when loading the loaf, and then remain in the pot, traveling up the sides and sticking out the top after you put the lid back on. If too long you can trim them with kitchen shears at that point. The exposed edges may burn, but that's fine.
For years, annoyed at getting bran all over the kitchen when I first followed the Lahey recipe for no-knead bread's second rise and transfer into the dutch oven to bake, I've been allowing the dough to rise in a bowl lined with parchment paper. Like Dragonbones above, I then lift the whole thing and place it gently into my dutch oven. Works like a charm. I now rarely let a slack dough rise on a flat surface. The parchment browns or, at worst, blackens some. It never imparts a taste to the bread. The paper gets pulled off easily after the loaf is removed fully baked.
Parchment Paper it is....seems to be the consensus from all so that is how I shall bake with today's loaf. I have used it before but hadn't thought of it for going up the sides of the pot before.....another one of those 'dumb' moments.....
Thanks for the help :-)
Parchment worked great! No mess to clean up and it was a very easy way to get the dough in and out of the hot pot!
I can even re-use the parchment paper!
No more sticking and I can bake without fear using my enameled pots now.
:-)
Aloha Janet,
Yes, parchment paper is great. And has been suggested, making it longer allows easy removal from the Dutch oven/whatever.
Based on comments some months ago in TFL, I now proof my bread on parchment paper in the Dutch oven. The regular oven is preheated and five minutes or so after the buzzer goes off, and when the bread is clearly ready to be baked using the touch test, in goes the Dutch oven with the lid on. I just add 5 minutes to the initial baking time interval.
The results are just fine. Great spring, crust, crumb, etc. And as important, you're only touching the extremely hot Dutch oven once, which is when you remove it from the regular oven. Nice...
aloha,
Dave Hurd, Hilo, Hawaii
Funny you should mention putting the cold pot into a hot oven....I read that here too and today I had 2 small loaves to bake. First one got the cold pot and hotter oven - second one got the hot pot and cooler oven. (It had to wait in line :-) )
The first one actually had better oven spring but it's bottom was quite a bit darker than the second loaf's baked at a cooler temp. THink the second one over proofed a bit too because it had to wait and rise an additional 45 minutes before being baked.
I was pleased with the results and the family has eaten half of one loaf already and I just dropped of the other at a friend's house.....
Don't know how you manage to bake in Hawaii -- I would think the oven's heat would really heat things up more than they already are in your part of the world.
I know it gets harder to bake for me when our summer temps. get going...fans help a bit but by the end of the day our house is pretty warm....
Because we live surrounded by water, the sea level temperatures generally range from the mid 60's to the mid 80's (F). And on the island of Hawaii where I live, the evenings are generally cool because winds cascade down from ~13,000 ft mountains to cool the lower elevations. In the day time winds are generally from the northeast or east and are the temperature of the water ( mid 70's ) so unless the winds come from the south where the water is generally warmer, the conditions are pretty nice. And we keep the windows open to let the wind blow through the house.
Did I say it rains in Hilo? Normally we have about 12 ft of rain a year but lately it's been only about half of that amount - good for the photo-voltaic system we installed but pretty tough on the farmers.
In any case, the temperatures never approach summer in St. Louis where I grew up nor Houston where we spent nearly a decade in the 80's.
aloha,
Dave Hurd, Hilo, Hawaii
Glad that worked, Janetook! I wouldn't reuse the parchment though, as it becomes brittle after baking, and it could fail when you lift the next loaf, resulting in a big mess.