I thought I’d share a method that works splendidly for me to bake without a Dutch oven, or fancy steam injected oven.
I live in Germany where my oven is tiny and my dutch oven barely can squeeze in. I stumbled across a German YouTube channel a while ago called “the bread code” who shared this ingenious method of baking with a couple of large sheet pans in the open oven to trap steam. I’ve been baking this way for the past 4 years and it works wonderfully (pictures of a couple recent loaves for proof;)).
I’ve attached a picture of my setup: top rack I put a big inverted sheet pan to trap steam and block the heating element, middle is where I put my bread on a small pan, and bottom I put another deeper sheet pan (or other vessel) of freshly boiled water (where my finger is pointing). Halfway through, I simply remove the top sheet pan. Works like a charm! Just make sure to not use convection if you try this method. It dries out the oven too much, yielding inconsistent results.
by Yarnandbread
4 Comments
I’ve learned a lot from the Bread Code .. including this and yes it works as well as a Dutch Oven for me, and allows me to bake things that won’t fit in my Dutch oven.
Here’s a link to his video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQHSA2KoRY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPQHSA2KoRY)
I tried putting a pan of water in the oven for the preheating and the first 20 minutes of baking (it was simmering by the time I put the dough in and was almost dry by the time I took it out). Do you think this works?
I’m going to try this. My oven (in America) has the heating element on the bottom so I think I’ll
just have to raise the dough rack a bit to create that steam “trap” you created with the tray above the bread. Thanks for the cool idea!
LOVE this