Baking Bread in a Dutch Oven

By Mark Hansen

Over the last year, I've been making a concerted effort to learn how to make yeast breads. I've tried a lot of variations, like sourdoughs, ryes, sandwich loaves, and even basic french breads. I've checked a lot of recipes, and I've read a lot of books.

There's a couple of problems with learning how to bake bread that way. First of all, a lot of books and recipes assume that you already know the techniques, or at least most of them, so they tell you the ingredients and the proportions, but not how to do it. Second, those books were all about baking bread in a normal oven, or even a specialized baker's oven, not a dutch oven at a campsite or on your back porch (like I do mine).

So, over the past year, I've learned some things about bread making. And along the way, I assumed that these were things that everybody knew, and I had just been the slow one. I didn't really talk about it much with people, because I assumed that they'd just say, "Well, duh, when did you figure THAT one out?"

But I discovered that most dutch oven chefs also didn't know a lot of the things I was learning, so I started to come out of my shell and share.

So, here are the things I've learned about baking yeast bread in a dutch oven:

* The Recipe is Only Half What You Need

Baking good bread is half ingredients, and half technique. It's as important to learn how to combine the ingredients and what to do with them as it is what ingredients to combine. This is where so many simple recipes fail you.

Most recipes will tell you to knead and to rise, but few will tell you how to tell when you've kneaded enough, or why you sometimes want a slow rise instead of a quick one.

* Enrichments are great, but not always necessary

Really, all you absolutely need to make bread are four basic ingredients: Flour, salt, yeast, and water. If you can do it with those, you can do it with anything else you wanna add. Sugar, butter, oil, milk, cheese, herbs, nuts, and more, all help to make your bread fluffier, tastier and more unique, but it really all comes down to the basic four. And, I've learned that with just those ingredients, you can make a very fluffy and tasty bread!

* You Need to Knead

Kneading accomplishes two things, on my counter top. One is that I mix in the right amount of flour. Different flours on different days will absorb the water differently. If the dough is dry, it's tough to add more water, but if you make your initial dough wet and sticky, and then add more flour as you knead, you can adjust it to the texture you like. I keep adding flour until I can knead it steady without it sticking to my hands. That usually means that I add a little less than most recipes call for, and the bread isn't as heavy as a result.

The second reason for kneading is far more important. It develops the gluten strands and makes it so that the bread can trap the gas that the yeast makes. That makes the bread rise. For so long, I would be frustrated that my bread wasn't rising. It would take FOREVER. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I'd knead the bread as long as the recipe said to, so why wasn't it working?

Just like different flours absorb water differently, they also take varying amounts of kneading. You can't definitively say, "knead for 8 minutes" and know that it'll be enough. You need to do the "Windowpane Test". That's the only way to know.

Cut off a small piece of the dough you're kneading. Roll it into a ball in your palms. Then, working it in a circle, begin to stretch it out flat in the air. Pull it evenly apart, like you're stretching out a pizza dough. Keep stretching it thinner and thinner. Watch how long it takes to tear. If you can stretch it out so thin it becomes translucent, like a window pane, without it tearing, then you've kneaded it enough. If not, put that piece back in the dough ball and keep kneading.

* Pre-Heat the Oven

Professional bakers always put their bread into hot ovens. Most dutch oven bread recipes I read just said to put coals on. Well, sure, eventually, the iron will get hot enough and it will bake your bread.

But it turns out that when you shove a ball of dough into an already heated oven, that initial blast of heat will make the dough "spring". That means it puffs up almost immediately. The trapped gas expands, the moisture in the dough turns to steam, and the whole ball just poofs. You get a bigger loaf, with a softer crumb (that's the technical term for the part of the bread that's not the crust).

There are two ways to approach this. One way is to do just what it says. Pre-heat the dutch oven. After you've risen and shaped the bread, set it aside to proof on a piece or two of baking parchment, with plent of extra parchment all around the dough. Oil the inside of the dutch oven. Count out the proper coals for baking the bread (according to the recipe). Put the right amount in a ring underneath the dutch oven, and the right amount above on the lid. Let it sit, empty, while it gets hot and the dough proofs. Then, when the dough is ready and the dutch oven is hot, gently lift the dough by the parchment and set it into the dutch oven. Close the lid and let it bake.

Another method is to pre-heat the lid of the dutch oven. After your bread has risen and you've shaped it, put it in an oiled dutch oven to proof. In the meantime, put some (a lot) of coals on the lid and set it aside. When the loaf is ready, take some of the coals off the lid and put them in a ring. Set the dutch oven on the ring of coals, and put the lid on. The advantage of this method is that you're not handling the bread as much, and so there's less of a chance of punching the bread down as you're trying to maneuver it into a hot dutch oven. You can also do some fun shapes, like braids and rings. It's much easier to do rolls this way, too.

However, the other method gives a better blast of heat and better spring. There are some breads, like french bread, that really only respond to the first method (in my experience).

* Turn the Dutch Oven

This is a pretty standard technique that I learned pretty early, and it's vital for bread making. You have to turn the oven from time to time, so that you don't get hot spots. Lift the oven and turn it about a quarter turn in one direction, then set it back down on the coals. Then turn the lid about a quarter turn, some say in the opposite direction, but I don't know that it makes any difference. The whole point is to have the placement of the coals be different in relation to the bread. It helps keep from getting hot spots where the bread cooks unevenly.

I usually do it every 15-20 minutes (typically twice during the course of baking a bread loaf), but I know others that do it even more often, at 10-15 minutes. Do it as often as you like, because as long as you don't lift the lid every time and let the heat escape, it won't hurt the bread.

* Use a Thermometer

It can be difficult to strictly regulate the internal temperature of a dutch oven. There are sooo many variables. Counting coals is a good idea, but if it's cold out, or windy, or any of a number of factors, the heat can vary. That means, I'm never sure when it's done. Cooking a certain length of time is no guarantee. Looking at the "golden brown" of the crust doesn't work, because I can never tell if it's done inside. In a dutch oven, it's not always practical to reach in, lift out the loaf and thump it.

My solution? Stick a meat thermometer in it. If it's between 180 and 200, it's done. 180 for the lighter types of breads, 200 for heavier breads.

* Let it cool

Finally, let it cool before cutting it. I used to pull it out and cut it open right away, partly because I was excited, but mostly to be sure it was done. Sadly, it never did seem quite done. Why? Because a lot of the final cooking bits happen as it's cooling! So, be patient, let it cool and finish. Sometimes I pull it out of the oven to cool, other times I leave it in. I haven't really noticed much difference yet. If it's a batch of rolls that fill the base of the dutch oven, I'll usually pull them out to cool, so that they can air on the bottom. A boule in the middle of the dutch oven, I'll usually leave in.

So, there you have my ideas on making breads in a dutch oven. Follow the recipe, and follow these hints, and you'll do better than you did before, I can almost guarantee!

This is my core basic bread recipe. It has some enrichments, like the honey, the milk, the oil, and the egg.

* 1 cup hot water
* 1 Tbsp yeast
* 3/4 cup honey
* 4-5 cups flour, with probably about cup to be added during kneading
* A pinch of salt
* 1 cups milk
* 1 egg

I've made lots of different breads by using this basic recipe and adding flavorings. Here are some of my favorite additives:

* Cocoa, Pero, and molasses, for a nice dark and chocolatey bread
* Minced garlic and crushed red peppers for a sandwich slice with an edge
* Ground cloves, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Paprika, Nutmeg, Dried ground ginger for a tasty spice bread