Baking the Perfect Loaf of Bread at Home

[bluesed]

Im not going to write the recipe   But i made this bread yesterday and it was very nice. I did use sourdough and kamut but will try with yeast next time.

Try it out, its the most basic and one of the easiest bread recipes i ever seen posted on the net.

http://www.sullivanstreetbakery.com/recipes

The point of baking the bread in a pot is to achieve a better crust and let the dough rise even more while inside the oven. What happens in normal ovens when you bake bread is that when the crust have been made(pretty fast in dry ovens) the bread rising process stops. By having the bread in a pot the steam produced will keep the bread soft and let it rise even more.

[achookwoman]

Bluesed,  I often make my bread in the cast iron pot.   Although a foil tent will give a similar result.  I use the foil tent when I want a different shaped slice. Best to oil the lid well .

[bluesed]

I dont usually bake my bread in any pot but i wanted to see the result from this recipe and was nice. I have an oven that can produce steam so i just add steam for the first minutes which gives an even better result.

[Kate84]

Don't have any fancy oven here (a bit jealous though), but i often put a glass or tray of hot water into the oven when baking bread. Always makes a nice loaf.

[Lovemythermo]

bluesed do you have the Miele oven with the Moisture setting? I'm looking at that one but not sure if I would use that function.

[bluesed]

Its a Itallian brand named MARENO. It is a combo which is normal oven and steam oven(Gas/Electriacal/water).
The temperature/thermostat is very precise and i can set f.ex 82 celsius steam and the temperature wont go off more then 1 Celsius.
I dont think the price range are in what you are looking for as it cost about 6000€

Is it worth buying a steam oven for home use really depends on what you cook. I dont know about the home ovens if they can produce steam in the same way and inject it into the oven which is the part that is very useful when baking bread but you can achieve the same effect by throwing in a glass of water in the bottom of the oven just before you put in your bread. Just placing a bowl of water in the oven dosnt make enough steam to achieve the same.

Other things that its good for is surely steaming fish,the best cheese cake in the world, vegetables, eggs, reheating things, sous vide(you can do that much cheaper by buying a external thermostat and a rice cooker). Well most of the things you can do in a steam oven you can do with other appliances but not in same scale.

Another thing to consider is if you have a steam oven you can be pretty sure that the oven wont last as long before it needs repair as the all appliances using water irrigated or stuck with calcium.

My last repair of the oven cost about 600€ 

[CreamPuff63]

but you can achieve the same effect by throwing in a glass of water in the bottom of the oven just before you put in your bread. Just placing a bowl of water in the oven dosnt make enough steam to achieve the same.

really? throw in a glass of water on the bottom of the oven? i don't suppose its going to do any damage at all, but I just think it might leak out through the bottom of the oven door...worth a try with a towel waiting to mop up the mess anyway 

[bluesed]

When you oven is 200 Celsius the water will evaporate in less then 30 seconds and create steam. You have to make sure that your oven is hot which means that even when the thermostat says it has reached 200 you have to wait additional 15 minutes to make sure that all the metal in the oven is same temperature as well. Also if you use water close to boiling the effect will be even better.

Normal ovens dont take damage from throwing water inside but if you are afraid of damage just put in a big thick /ceramic/glass/metal tray or similar with a big surface and pour the water into that. The bigger surface the better!