Do you know how to make bread?

I’m about to find out…

Baking Bread Without a Dutch Oven tl;dr

• I was in a rush to find something to bake and found bread
• Only 4 basic ingredients – Water, Flour, Yeast, Salt!
• Get yourself a dough scraper… Really!

I was in a mood for bread but didn’t feel like either walking all the way over to the bakery, paying the artisinal prices nor order some. Then I remembered that we had an oven. AN OVEN! You don’t understand, but let me say tell you that it’s been 3 years since I last had the modern convenience, nay the kitchen luxury known as the oven.

With that in mind, I set out to find a recipe that matched a number of conditions:

• Could be made with what ingredients I had available to me
• Could be made within my limited baking abilities (it’s been a while since I baked bread from scratch, think 20+ years)
• Didn’t take a ridiculous amount of time because I wanted it relatively now

Finding Easy Bake Bread

I scoured my feeds, researching online people’s personal attempts at baked carbs and scanned Youtube. Long story short, I found one that I had faith that I could accomplish before the sun set. There were a few snags that didn’t quite match up in the video so a few last minute adjustments and I got there.

Turned out the adjusted recipe was easy to prepare, without so much waiting time and if I don’t say so myself, came out amazingly due in small part my involvement.

The Snag

The catch that I came across in the video that namely put me off was the use of a Dutch oven. I didn’t have one nor did I plan to acquire one anytime soon. I looked up the reason for use of a Dutch oven and figured out an alternative technique. Turns out, the main reason for use of the Dutch oven is steam!

First, I double checked whether someone else did it already because I didn’t want to try to reinvent the wheel. You can bake it inside a Pyrex type dish or directly on a baking dish and topped with a bowl or another method for keeping steam in to help with crust formation… Or something like that.

No Dutch oven handy? Throw a cup of water into a hot tray in the oven for some steam!

Ingredients

You’ll only need 4 basic ingredients:

• Bread Flour   4 cups  |  500 gr (can substitute All Purpose Flour)*
• Instant Dry Yeast   2 tsp  |  5 gr
• Table Salt   1 tbsp  |  7 gr
• Water   1.5 cups  |  350 ml

How to Make It

Watch the video that I basically imitated (with some minor adjustments) and read the captions and depending on where you live, convert the measurements. With that being said, I’ve yet to get the dough to look perfectly the same at every step as in the video, but I don’t think it needs to be.

The bread will be a little sticky and maybe not completely combined yet but don’t worry about it. Don’t add too much flour, it will work itself out and completely combine… Eventually. Just get ready for some sticky hands.

What You’ll Need

• Oven
• Oven Mitts Because Safety!
• 1 Baking Tray to Bake Your Bread On
• 1 More Baking Tray or Oven Safe Container to Pour Water Into
• Wax Paper or Other Non Stick Method
• Ingredients (listed above)
• Measuring Cups, Spoons or Scale
• 2 Mixing Bowls (large bowls)
• 1 Plate or Saran Wrap
• 2 Kitchen Towels
• Dough Scraper
• Mixing Tools (I’m manual)
• Clean Countertop or Large Cutting Board or Whatever You Can Use to Knead Dough On
• Some Patience

Ok, I admit that the instructions are mostly complete, maybe too complete with a lot of steps but I don’t want to assume you know what I’m talking about. Some steps are obvious but I’m just trying to be overly thorough… To a fault. 

First Stage (30ish minutes  |  30ish minutes running total)

1. Take your ingredients and combine them into a bowl
2. Sprinkle some flour onto your workspace
3. Place or SCRAPE your sticky dough onto your dusted workspace
4. Knead your sticky dough into a ball… Watch the video and attempt to copy the motions, I still don’t get it perfect
5. Pour a small amount of oil that you mixed your dough in
6. Place your dough ball into oiled bowl
7. Spin the ball to spread the oil all over itself
8. Cover with a plate or saran wrap
9. Wait at least 30 minutes for it to rise

Second Stage (30ish more minutes  | 60ish minutes running total)

1. Sprinkle some flour onto your counter
2. Remove the puffed up dough ball from the bowl onto your
3. Using the dough scraper, split the dough ball in half (you’ll get 2 pieces)
4. Knead each half into dough balls again (2 dough balls)
5. Get your 2nd bowl next to your 1st bowl (you’ll have 2 bowls)
6. Place a kitchen towel open in both bowls
7. Sprinkle some flour over both towels
8. Place 1 of the 2 dough balls into the center of the towel
9. Loosely wrap the rest of the dough ball with the rest of the towel
10. Repeat steps 8-9 with the 2nd dough ball
11. Now you have 2 dough balls wrapped in floured towels in 2 bowls
12. Wait at least another 30 minutes
13. Place your baking tray and oven safe into the oven
14. Preheat your oven to 450 F  |  232 C

Third Stage (15 minutes  |  75ish minutes running total)

1. Open your hot oven
2. Put on your oven mitts
3. Pull out hot baking tray
4. Pull out your 2 bowls
5. Unwrap your dough balls
6. Place each dough ball onto the baking tray
7. Place the baking tray back into the hot oven
8. Pour water into oven safe tray in the bottom of the oven (STEAM)
9. Close oven door
10. Lower the oven temperature to 430 F  |  221 C
11. Wait 15 minutes

Fourth Stage, Last Stage (15 minutes  |  90ish minutes running total)

1. Open that oven again
2. Put on your mitts
3. Remove the tray / oven safe container (there may still be water in it)
4. Close that oven door
5. Lower the oven temperature to 350 F  |  177 C
6. Wait 15 minutes
7. Turn off your oven
8. Remove the bread
9. Let it cool and ENJOY!

I like my bread with a little salt and copious amounts of butter.
You do you!
;D

Youtube Video Reference

Homemade Bread | Amazing result in conventional oven – CUKit!
https://youtu.be/yCDTVzRQnD0

What baked good is your latest discovery??