You'll Love these Cast Iron Skillet Bread Recipes (#4 will make you drool!) (2024)

FAQs

Is a cast-iron Dutch oven good for bread? ›

A cast-iron dutch oven is the perfect vessel for baking bread at home. Remember the bread machine craze of the 1990s?

Most no knead bread recipes require a covered Dutch oven pan for baking. Not this one. You can make a delicious loaf of rustic bread baked in a cast iron skillet without any special tools, ingredients, or equipment. A loaf of crusty bread is a masterpiece.

Using other pots for baking bread

You can try using a 4- to 5-quart heavy covered pot, like a cast iron Dutch oven.

Cast iron: While cast iron requires more care than the other materials on this list, its heat retention and distribution are second to none, resulting in beautifully browned loaves every time. However, it's heavy and is hand wash only.

Cast iron is able to reach high heats and maintain constant temperatures, creating a Maillard reaction on the bread's exterior—aka a seemingly simple but rather complicated set of chemical reactions that take place as food is cooked, affecting both color and the complexity of flavor.

Yes, you can season the pans for frying, sautéing, or baking in cast iron cookware like pans, pots, or skillets with butter, but it's not the right choice to season it for the first time. Butter immediately starts to smoke when added to a heated pan because cast iron can withstand a lot of heat.

Soaking cast iron in water is a recipe for rust. If you need to remove sticky or stubborn stuck-on food, use a nylon scrubbing brush or a pan scraper and rinse under warm water. Be sure to thoroughly dry your pan. Note: If you do accidentally leave your pan in water for too long and it develops rust, don't panic!

Parchment paper can also bring its non-stick convenience to cooking with cast iron. Whether you're baking bread in a Dutch oven or whipping up a pizza in a skillet, there are plenty of ways you can use parchment paper to make the most of your cast-iron cookware.

You really can use any cast iron skillet to bake these sourdough recipes. I have mostly used a 12" round cast iron skillet for these recipes. However I also have an enamel cast iron skillet that I use for some recipes (although I don't love the enamel cast iron skillet).

So for a family of four, you would want something that is a minimum of 4 quarts. And then with rounding up, the ideal size would be somewhere in the 5-6 quart capacity. But an important thing to consider is whether you also often cook for extended family or guests.

Why are Le Creuset so expensive? ›

When you buy from Le Creuset, you're paying for high-quality pots and pans that are designed to stand the test of time. Rather than aluminum or stainless steel, Le Creuset craft their pieces from cast iron, which has a much higher heat capacity.

Dutch oven bread recipes often call for a 5.5-quart pot, which makes these Dutch ovens more desirable for baking, which inspires more recipes — and the delicious cycle continues.

The high heat inside the Dutch oven brings the water inside the dough to evaporate. Because you have the lid on top, the steam is trapped inside and creates a hot and steamy environment. This helps your bread to stay moist and flexible so it can rise and expand easily.

Yes you can bake sourdough bread in an enamel Dutch Oven. I use both raw cast iron and enamel Dutch Oven with no real difference to the outcome.

Raw cast iron needs to be seasoned to make it nonstick and rust-resistant, while enameled Dutch ovens are somewhat nonstick and protected out of the box. High-quality enamel coatings are expensive, which is why enameled Dutch ovens cost more than their standard cast iron counterparts.