

Make sure to use a piece of parchment paper to lift the bread in and out of your Dutch oven. Some testers also have good luck placing a baking steel or pizza stone on the rack directly below the Dutch oven, again to redistribute some of the heat.

preheating your Dutch oven for half the time. Try placing a sheet pan directly underneath your Dutch oven when baking to redistribute some of the heat, or 4. Make sure your oven rack is in the center of your oven (or, if burning occurs while baking in the center of your oven, move your rack one notch farther away from your heat source). use an oven thermometer to check the true temperature of your oven (I've had ovens that are off by as much as 40 degrees in one direction!) 2. How do I stop the bottom of my loaf from burning or overbaking? There are a bunch of ways to adjust if the bottom of your bread is burning! 1.Can I use rapid rise or instant yeast for this recipe? Yes - just reduce the amount of yeast to 1 ½ teaspoons (about 25% less than we use with Active Dry Yeast).If you don't have a scale, you can still make great bread without it - just make sure to follow the notes in the recipe below - but if you plan to bake bread a lot, a scale is definitely worth the investment! Just set the scale to grams, place an empty bowl or container on top, set the scale to zero, and add your ingredients until it reaches the right weight. Related: Please use a kitchen scale! If you already have a scale, please use it.
#DUTCH CRUNCH BREAD WHERE TO BUY FREE#
Don't worry - it will become more elastic as gluten develops while the dough rises! If you are still worried about the consistency of the dough, feel free to mix in more flour ¼ cup at a time - especially if you measured your flour by volume (in cups, which can frequently result in using too much or too little flour) rather than by weight with a kitchen scale.

This dough should NOT pull away from the sides of a bowl into a smooth, elastic ball like other recipes you may have used. This is a very slack (wet) dough - the dough should feel quite shaggy and a bit sticky when mixed. For additional training videos, tips, and recipes, check out Everyday Artisan Bread! This section is LONG - but we wanted to cover the most frequent questions we get! Feel free to skip right to the recipe, but please do utilize this section if you run into questions while you're baking. (Read more about the importance of steam in bread baking here!) HOMEMADE BREAD FAQ By keeping the lid on while the bread bakes, you create a nice steamy atmosphere inside the pot - and the steam is what gives the bread that crispy, magical crust. The crackly brown crust here is the result of baking this bread in a Dutch oven. If you don't have a proofing basket, no worries! Just use a medium-sized (8- or 9-inch diameter) mixing bowl to let the bread do its final rise before you bake it. You also end up with beautiful flour rings on the crust! We like to use an 8- to 9-inch proofing basket for a single loaf of bread. If you're serious about homemade bread, you may enjoy using a proofing basket (it's one of my favorite kitchen tools!) to help the bread keep its shape while it rises.

Bake for 30 minutes with the lid on, then remove the lid and bake another 10-15 minutes to help the bread develop more color.
