17 Cozy Bread Recipes You Can Make in a Dutch Oven (2024)

FAQs

What temperature do you bake bread in a Dutch oven? ›

Turning proofed bread dough out right into a preheated Dutch oven instead of on a pizza peel. My method for baking bread dough in a Dutch oven: Preheat your home oven to 450°F (230°C) with a Dutch oven inside for 30 to 45 minutes.

A cast-iron dutch oven is the perfect vessel for baking bread at home.

Any tips for preventing a thick, hard crust on the bottom of my bread done in a Dutch oven? Make sure you are using a heavy gauge Dutch oven and that it isn't too close to the bottom heat element in your oven. If you are still getting a thick, hard crust, you can put a pillow of foil down, like this.

The high heat inside the Dutch oven brings the water inside the dough to evaporate. Because you have the lid on top, the steam is trapped inside and creates a hot and steamy environment. This helps your bread to stay moist and flexible so it can rise and expand easily.

If the bottom of your Dutch oven isn't enamel-coated, it's best to use the parchment paper. Mine is enamel-coated, but I find it easier to keep the round shape of the dough if I just place it in the Dutch oven with the parchment paper. Whatever works fer ya!

Most no knead bread recipes call for preheating the Dutch oven while the oven heats up. Not only do we not recommend heating an empty Dutch oven, but it can be challenging to wrangle the wet dough carefully into an extremely hot pot. But we found that preheating is really not necessary to achieve a delicious loaf.

Lubricate With Oil. One of the easiest ways our bakers follow to make bread soft and fluffy is by using 1-2 tablespoons of lubricant/fats such as vegetable oil to wet the ingredients. This will prevent the formation of excess gluten, as excess gluten makes bread chewy.

Molly Marzalek-Kelly, senior recipe developer at King Arthur Baking Company, says milk powder helps yeasted breads “have a higher rise and softer texture. Milk powder lends an added level of tenderness while also helping to increase the item's shelf life.

Simply put, you have to control the temperature of the bread. Allowing ample time for your bread dough to rise and the yeast to form will create the holes in the bread that give it a lighter texture. Letting your dough get puffy and grow before it goes into the oven is critical.

A Dutch oven is a catch-all term for enclosing your loaf inside a chamber for the first 20 minutes of the bake and then baking without the lid for the next 20 minutes. Enclosing a loaf like this in the initial part of the bake helps the loaf to achieve really good oven spring.

Do bakeries use Dutch ovens? ›

Even among professional bakers, dutch ovens are still top of the list for baking sourdough bread. This is because they heat the bread evenly, which leads to more consistent cooking of the loaf.

Nearly all dutch oven cooking will come out ok if your dutch oven is about 350 degrees. Some things should be cooked hotter and some cooler, but that's the temperature for all recipes that fail to include a temperature suggestion.

Lean-dough loaves of bread, for example, bake at 190-210 degrees Fahrenheit while heavier dough bread is done at 180-200 degrees F. There are two methods of baking bread; you can preheat the oven for 15 minutes to 475 degrees Fahrenheit or place the dough directly into the oven without preheating.

For “lean” breads, which contain only the basic four ingredients, I bake them at 450 degrees F. Baguettes and rolls bake for about 20 – 25 minutes, while most other loaves bake for 35 to 45 minutes. An instant read thermometer is a big help in telling when a loaf is done.

If you can, aim to bake your bread at 230°C (450°F). If you're baking regularly, you might consider upgrading to a Rofco oven.