After making no-knead bread in my cheap and small 2.5 quart covered stoneware, I decided I wanted to try baking it in a Kitchen Dutch oven. I also wanted to make the bread larger, so I decided wanted to get a 5 or 6 quart dutch oven. I really didn’t want a dutch oven that required much maintenance so I decided to go with an enamel coated dutch oven, even though they cost more. Amazon has a few of these enamel coated cast iron dutch ovens for a good price and free shipping, or you can usually find them at Fred Meyers, Wall Mart, or Costco. I ended up getting a 6 quart dutch oven so it would be big enough for me to experiment with.
I used my White Sandwich Loaf No-Knead Bread Recipe, except I put some Mrs. Dash Tomato & Basil Garlic seasoning and a hand full of shredded parmesan cheese in the dough mix, just for a new taste. I also had to change some of the recipe directions.
Recipe Instruction Changes:
Instead of putting the dough into the bread pan to rise, you will put it in a greased 3 quart bowl to rise and follow the directions here instead of the rest of the steps in the recipe. After the dough has risen for about an hour, place your empty dutch oven cookware in the oven turn the oven to 450 degrees (to preheat the dutch oven). After 30 minutes of preheating the dutch oven, it is ready to start baking bread. Open the oven, take the lid off the dutch oven and (being very careful not to get burned) dump the dough out of the greased bowl into the dutch oven. Place lid back on the dutch oven and close the oven door. After baking for 30 minutes, remove the lid of the dutch oven and continue baking in without the lid for 15 minutes. Remove dutch oven from stove and dump the bread onto a cooling rack t cool.
Makes Outstanding Bread
The dutch oven gave me an large and awesome looking round artisan looking bread. The crust and the crumb of this bread came out great, again better than baking in a bread pan. This one disappeared fast, what a hit this bread is with me, my family, and friends.
I would definitely recommend giving a dutch oven some consideration when making no-knead bread. If you have never made no-knead bread before, I would still start with the bread pans first before buying any special pans like this. I am sure you will be addicted to making bread after the first few loafs of no-knead bread.
You are correct…after making several varieties of these great breads…. I am addicted to making them. They are simply, the easiest and best tasting breads that I have ever made. I bought a dutch over several months ago, and, after looking at many bread recipes for the oven, decided that it would be more trouble than it is worth to use it. Now, thanks to you, and this easy recipe, I will be making this one.
Bread turned out great. Crust started looking charred after only about 5 min with the lid off though. Are you not supposed to lower the temp after removing the lid?
Actually, the purpose of removing the lid is to brown the top. So I would remove the bread as soon as the top crust is nicely browned, because the bread is actually cooked all the way though by the time you remove the lid.