Baked French Bread Inside Stove

Hi All,

Not sure if anyone else uses their stoves to cook or bake. Today, I made French bread inside the stove. Knowing that my US Stove 1100B creates alot of coals when the I shut the air down, i figure I'd put and old cast iron dutch oven in there with the lid on and put some bread to bake. It actually turned out really good. It sat in coals for about 1hr at 350-400. Bread came out nice and crunch and it had a hint of smoke. Put some butter on it and had with with some hot chocolate. Yes, water for chocolate was boiled on top of the stove.

BeGreen said:

French bread? Sounds a bit more like trail bread. I'm sure it turned out well, but French bread is quite a separate art.

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Made a few small french baguettes. Old Haitian recipe from my ancestors. Came out really good actually. nothing like warm bread and butter on a hot evening.

pen said:

I've done cornbread like that, never a yeast bread. hmm (gears are turning). I like the way you think.

Is there a power outage somewhere? 2nd thread on cooking / baking on the stove tonight. Sometimes it'll be months in between seeing interest in this.

pen

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No, the power is on, thank God. Just bored, so i get creative when im bored. If the power went out I am ready with my generator.

perplexed said:

KatWill said:

pen said:

I've done cornbread like that, never a yeast bread. hmm (gears are turning). I like the way you think.

Is there a power outage somewhere? 2nd thread on cooking / baking on the stove tonight. Sometimes it'll be months in between seeing interest in this.

pen

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No, the power is on, thank God. Just bored, so i get creative when im bored. If the power went out I am ready with my generator.

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When you get bored again you might check out the forum boards on The Fresh Loaf. Lots of bread baking fanatics from all corners of the world and I am sure they would love to get a photo of your bread.....

I will have to try out your method one of these days though I don't have a lidded pan that will survive my insert....I have the clay Romertopf bakers and they can be a bit delicate so I am not sure I want to try sticking one of them into the hot coals...maybe I can use one of my cast iron frying pans and make cinnamon rolls using a regular pot lid....

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Here is a picture of how the bread came out. It was actually pretty tasty. First time. Please ask your wife to please not laugh at my amateur attempt. LOL

ispinwool said:

KatWill said:

perplexed said:

KatWill said:

pen said:

I've done cornbread like that, never a yeast bread. hmm (gears are turning). I like the way you think.

Is there a power outage somewhere? 2nd thread on cooking / baking on the stove tonight. Sometimes it'll be months in between seeing interest in this.

pen

Click to expand...

No, the power is on, thank God. Just bored, so i get creative when im bored. If the power went out I am ready with my generator.

Click to expand...

When you get bored again you might check out the forum boards on The Fresh Loaf. Lots of bread baking fanatics from all corners of the world and I am sure they would love to get a photo of your bread.....

I will have to try out your method one of these days though I don't have a lidded pan that will survive my insert....I have the clay Romertopf bakers and they can be a bit delicate so I am not sure I want to try sticking one of them into the hot coals...maybe I can use one of my cast iron frying pans and make cinnamon rolls using a regular pot lid....

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Here is a picture of how the bread came out. It was actually pretty tasty. First time. Please ask your wife to please not laugh at my amateur attempt. LOL

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Beautiful Bread! No laughing from this girl! I never thought about putting anything IN.....my gears are whirling too.

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Thank you. I just gave some to my neighbors and they couldnt believe that it was homemade much less inside the wood stove.

I'm hungry now!

PapaDave said:

KatWill, Love the pic.
I've thought of doing the same in a couple of dutch ovens, but thought the crust might burn with the pot sitting right on the coals.
You've re-piqued my interest in doing this.
I haven't made ANY bread yet this winter. Very strange for me.

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PapaDave,
I line the bottom of the ducth oven with partchman paper and that helped with the bottom not burning. I also let the dough on the wetter side since the dutch oven runs so hot, it created a nice moist interior of the loafs.

Milt said:

I like your style, and I think my bread oven will go into my stove nicely. If it will fit into a dutch oven, I have cooked it in one, and since my largest oven is 8 gallons, almost anything will fit. The parchment paper is a good idea, and by making the dough moist, it makes the crust crunchier due to the moist baking environment. That is French bread, Be Green.

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Thanks Milt. I have been using this recipe for about 10 years but first time in the woodstove. Got the recipe from my Haitian family, so its definitely french. LOL. The "secret" ingredient is powder whole milk instead of water. I use Mylex powder milk and in a pinch i use Nestle's Klim

BeGreen said:

Milt said:

I like your style, and I think my bread oven will go into my stove nicely. If it will fit into a dutch oven, I have cooked it in one, and since my largest oven is 8 gallons, almost anything will fit. The parchment paper is a good idea, and by making the dough moist, it makes the crust crunchier due to the moist baking environment. That is French bread, Be Green.

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No doubt, I have a curious baker on hand that wants to try it. But she also is a visual kind of person and wants to see the end result so she has a better idea of what the goal is. At first she was against it because she saw her nice french bread pans going in on the coals and ash getting on the bread. She is also concerned about the crust not getting crisped well in a lidded container. Pics will help a lot here.

Note, one secret to good french bread is to let the dough rise slowly overnight in the refrigerator. It really brings out the flavor in the wheat.

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Hey BeGreen, I posted pics last night on the thread. Scroll up a bit. Yes, letting the dough rise is key. The crust was very crunchy and the middle was nice and moist. The key is to make the dough wetter than if you were going to bake it regularly since is enclosed in the lidded pot.

BeGreen said:

Missed that, just coming online now. Thanks, the loaves look really nice. The aroma is coming across the computer screen now. Did you have the lid on all the time? I can hear my wife from the kitchen asking for the recipe and timing.

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Thanks,
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 cups of bread flour
2.5 table spoon of dry yeast (with all this yeast it will rise fast)
1.5 Teaspoos of salt
1 Teaspoon of sugar (I used brown sugar, it has more taste)
1 cup of whole milk (very warm, yeast dissolves better in warmer milk)
1 cup of warm water to dissolve 3 Table spoon of powered milk

I baked it with the lid on for 45 minutes. The stove started out at around 425 but towards the end it was down to 350. I took the lid off for the last 2 minutes. It gave it a really nice golden brown crust.

Line the inside of the dutch oven with partchman paper, this will help with it not sticking. just make sure no paper is outside the pot, or it will obviously burn.
Please Tell your wife I am honored she asked for my recipe.