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.
Congrats with the new bread pan! Those are beautiful. I own a Staub enameled cast iron bread pan. It's awesome.
tips
1)Please, handle with care for the enamel chips off easily in corners and over the edge, but that does not make the pan unusable. Just prevent rusting in that area by removing any possible rust in that spot and rubbing some drying oil over it. Then heat the pan up to 175C and let it dry for 24 hours at room temperature (a drying oil will dry over time and create a new layer of enamel, albeit a carbon based, organic glass, not a silica based). Repeat that application of drying oil and drying it for 24 hours two more times, for a total of three layers of fresh enamel (it will be transparent and have no color of its own). Drying oils to choose from: hemp seed oil, linseed oil, tung oil, perilla oil, fish oil.
2) I use non-stick spray or my own non-stick mix, to prevent breads and quick breads sticking to enamel. Good recipes come from Laurel's bread baking book (Laurel's non-stick pan release), from Don and Joan German;'s Make Your Own Convenience Foods book, and from Andrew Janjigian's Wordloaf newsletter, his November 2024 article Coming Unstuck.
Laurel's non-stick pan release
Germans's non-stick pan coating
Andrew's DIY Nonstick Spread
Makes ~3/4 cup
100g (about 3/4 cup) refined coconut oil, melted in a microwave if solidified
20g vegetable oil
2 teaspoons powdered lecithin
Measure the coconut oil, vegetable oil, and lecithin into a glass half-pint mason jar or equivalent. Place the jar in a microwave and heat until warm to the touch, 30 to 60 seconds. Using a spoon, stir well. Leave the spoon in the container and let it sit for 30 minutes.
Stir again, then seal the jar and use as needed. (A few stray lecithin granules may remain present, but they will dissolve eventually.)
I have granulated lecithin, which I have recently discovered is not particularly useful as an egg yolk-replacer for enriched breads, because it doesn’t dissolve into doughs during mixing. But, as it turns out, you can easily grind it to a powder in a spice mill as long as you don’t try to grind more than 1/2 cup at a time.
Warning: The paste can polymerize and turn brown when exposed to high heat. The residue is harmless, but it can sometimes be a little difficult to remove from the pan. To avoid it, apply the paste only where it will make contact with the bread (once fully risen).
If temperatures are below 75˚F (24˚C), the paste will solidify, but it may take a few days to do so. MY comment to Andrew's warning: To remove polymerized lecithin with ease, should your pan's interior show it (it is visible both on white and black enameled interior), simply use an abrasive cleaner based on extra fine and very hard particles of feldspar (Barkeeper's Friend) , quarz (The Pink Stuff, Universal Stone), or aluminum oxide (extra fine sandpaper - 1000 grit or 1500 grit or NSF-certified polishing pastes, such as Peek and Autosol).
Happy baking!
m.